Gunfire kills one at frat house party
2 arrested; 11 injured, including 6 students
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Two men angry over a dispute at an Ohio fraternity house party left the gathering and returned early Sunday, spraying bullets into a crowd and killing a Youngstown State University student, authorities said. Eleven other people were injured, including a 17-year-old with a critical head wound.
The men were arrested and charged later Sunday with aggravated murder, shooting into a house and 11 counts of felonious assault, Youngstown police Chief Jimmy Hughes said. The suspects are in their early 20s and from the Youngstown area, but Hughes withheld their names pending further investigation.
“These guys were in the location for a little while before the shooting occurred,” he said. “Something happened that they became unhappy. They had some type of altercation.”
The shooting occurred at a two-story brick house in a neighborhood of once-elegant homes, many of which are now boarded up. The house party had been bustling with 50 or more people early Sunday, Hughes said.
The Mahoning County coroner’s office identified the dead student as 25-year-old Jamail E. Johnson. He was shot once in the head and multiple times on his hips and legs. An autopsy is planned today, said Dr. Joseph Ohr, a forensic pathologist with the coroner’s office.
“(Johnson) was just an excellent, excellent young man, and our loss runs deep,” said Christopher Cooper, a legal officer for Omega Psi Phi fraternity. The 11 people who were hurt ranged in age from 17 to 31, and about half of them were shot in the foot, police said. Two were hit in the abdomen, and the most seriously hurt was a 17-year-old who had a critical wound near one ear.
They were taken to nearby St. Elizabeth Health Center, and eight of them had been treated and released by afternoon, hospital spokeswoman Tina Creighton said. She said she could not release the conditions of the other three.
The university said six of the injured were students.
Members of the university-sanctioned Omega Psi Phi fraternity lived at the house, YSU spokesman Ron Cole said.