City records 10th killing of the year

Staff report

YOUNGSTOWN

Youngstown police are investigating the 10th homicide of the year and the second since Thursday after a man was found shot to death about 2:30 a.m. Sunday.

The shooting death is the latest in a spike in homicides in the city. The rate of homicides so far this year is up 100 percent; only five homicides were reported at this time last year, and the 10th did not occur until Aug. 1, according to Vindicator records.

The male victim was found Sunday in a vehicle in the 600 block of West Warren Avenue on the city’s lower South Side. He had been shot in the head and chest, according to police.

Before Sunday’s killing, the most recent homicide in Youngstown involved a man shot and killed while walking with his cousin on Wirt Street near Crandall Avenue on the North Side about 9:30 p.m. last Thursday.

Youngstown detectives and the Mahoning County Coroner’s Office are investigating both cases.

Last year, the city recorded a total of 26 homicides.

Guy Burney, the director of the city’s nonprofit Community Initiative to Reduce Violence, responded Sunday night to the sharp increase in killings. He said, “We’re continually at work because violence has to stop. ... One homicide is way too many.

“We’ll continue to do whatever we have to do to fight” the heightened violence in the city, he said.

Youngstown police ask anyone with information about this incident to contact them at 330-742-8929. Tips can also be called into Crime Stoppers at 330-746-CLUE.

Burney said the Covelli Centre will be the site of a Hope conference Thursday that will offer services for those individuals with a misdemeanor or felony conviction or those in recovery from drug dependence.

The conference will take place from 9:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. For information, call 330-742-8779.