Gunplay ‘gang related’

By Courtney Anderson
Herald Staff Writer

SHARON July 22, 2008 03:11 pm

— A beef between rival gang members resulted in gunfire Sunday near a playground on the south side of Sharon.
Two men are in jail and police are looking for another in connection with the shooting in which no one was hurt.
Police were called at 9:05 p.m. for shots fired in the 500 block of Baldwin Avenue, which is at the intersection of Plum Street.
It was still light outside and very close to the C.M. Musser Elementary playground, police Captain Travis Martwinski said.
“There were a lot of kids out,” Martwinski said, adding that when police arrived “parents were hustling their kids back into their houses.”
Two men were arrested Sunday night.
Jacquaze Q. “Chaos” Jones, 19, Middletown, Ohio, which is north of Cincinnati, was charged with attempted homicide, aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, police said.
Samual D. “Cheezy” Phillips Jr., 19, of Warren, Ohio, was charged with aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, police said.
Both men are being held in Mercer County Jail.
Police are looking for Tony Bonner Jr., 19. They have a warrant for his arrest on charges of aggravated assault and criminal conspiracy to commit aggravated assault.
Police are looking for information about Bonner’s whereabouts. They described him as black, 5-feet, 10-inches tall, and about 165 pounds, police said. Anyone with information is asked to call police at 724-983-3232.
At the time, police thought there might have been a victim shot as witnesses said four males left in a vehicle and four ran.
Within half an hour, police said someone called police and said people with information about the shooting were at a home in the 900 block of Wallis Avenue in Farrell.
Police talked to four Sharon teens ages 17 to 19 there who said four rival gang members approached them while they were playing basketball and one pulled a gun and fired several shots at them as they fled through an alley, police said.
Police weren’t able to say what specifically prompted the gunfire.
The teens identified the four rivals by name and witnesses in the neighborhood named them, as well, police said.
Police said they went to the home of a 17-year-old boy who was with Bonner, Jones and Phillips and found Phillips hiding in a bathroom and Jones on the porch roof outside the house at 725 Baldwin Avenue.
The juvenile had not been charged as of Monday, police said.
Phillips and Jones live in Ohio but have local ties, police said, and are members of a Shenango Valley street gang Martwinski declined to name to avoid giving them publicity. The teens they allegedly shot at are members of another area gang, police said.
“This wasn’t a random thing,” Martwinski said.
However, since some increased violence and crime this spring in the area, Martwinski said there seemed to have been a slight decline in such incidents in recent months.
There are no real borders for these gangs, as members live in Sharon and Farrell and very close to one another, Martwinski said, and they don’t necessarily identify with their cities.
“Something like this was just waiting to happen,” Martwinski said.
Police found shell casings at the scene but did not recover the gun.
The cooperation of the victims and witnesses helped police to find the alleged shooter and conspirators quickly, Martwinski said.