ELYRIA — A 22-year-old city man was shot in the right arm about 2:20 a.m. Saturday in the parking lot of the T&A Bar & Grill at 801 Foster Ave..
Jeris Nelson said he left the bar after a fight broke out and was shot by a man on Adams Street across the street from the bar, according to police Sgt. Scott Sargent and a report by Officer Joseph Figula Jr.
“Upon exiting, Nelson heard numerous gunshots possibly coming from across the street from the bar,” Figula wrote. “The next thing Nelson knew, he felt that he had been shot in the arm.”
Nelson said he didn’t see who shot him.
“I know y’all think I don’t want to snitch, but it ain’t like that,” Nelson said, according to the report. “I just don’t know.”
However, bar owner Angela Carter told a different story. Carter said she was outside the bar at closing time when a man drove into the parking lot, got out and began firing shots from a pistol into the air. Carter said she ran inside the bar and locked the door. She said about five shots were fired.
Carter described the shooter as a black man with bald head in his 30s and about 5 feet 10 inches tall with a stocky build. She said he was wearing a white T-shirt with gray sweatpants.
Carter, who bought the bar in 2007, said she tries to run a safe establishment and had no problems until bars with a rowdy reputation closed in the last two years and their customers started coming to her bar. Carter said she had to hire two bouncers.
Because of the shooting, Carter said she has stopped selling cognac and playing rap music at the bar.
“I’m done with all of these thugs trying to come in my bar,” she said. “Me and my husband (Tony) are trying to make it a nice establishment like it was five years ago.”
Sargent said it’s unclear if the shooting was related to the fight Nelson said happen. He said no shell casings were recovered from the scene and that police were notified of the shooting after Nelson showed up at EMH Medical Center in Elyria.
Contact Evan Goodenow at 329-7129 or goodenow@chroniclet.com.
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