ELYRIA — Ken Keeper remembers hearing three to four gun shots shortly after 8 p.m., looking out of his window and seeing police surround his neighborhood in the 700 block of Bowling Green Court in a matter of 10 minutes.
Keeper didn’t see the alleged shooter, but he said the incident was scary for a quite little neighborhood like Bowling Green.
“I’ve lived here for 23 years and nothing like that has ever happened here,” he said.
Police are investigating that shooting, and another that occurred around midnight that night.
At 8:10 p.m., officers, who were responding to a fight at the Park Meadow Apartments, were called to Keeper’s neighborhood.
Officers arrived to find 20-year-old Lorain resident, Willie Pettyjohn, shot in the legs.
Pettyjohn told police he went to his friend’s house on Bowling Green Court because his friend told him, “something was about to go down.”
He said that as he was exiting his vehicle he felt “the driver seat exploding,” and noticed he had been shot in the legs.
Pettyjohn said he did not see who shot him or notice anyone in the area at the time he was shot.
Police said Pettyjohn had a wound above his right ankle and his upper left and right thigh. Officers found seven spent brass 9 mm casings in the front yard of the home and in the northeast corner of the home, between the chain link fence and the neighbor’s yard.
Pettyjohn was transferred to EMH Regional Medical Center in Elyria for treatment of his gunshot wounds.
Officers closed off Bowling Green Court to investigate the crime scene.
Around midnight, officers received another call of a shooting, this time at Park Meadow Drive and South Abbe Road.
Officers went to Speedway at South Abbe and East Broad Street to meet Gilbert Harris, of Elyria, who said unknown people in a white or dark blue car shot at him while he was turning onto South Abbe Road from Park Meadow Drive.
Police found a bullet hole in the center driver’s door and passenger side mirror. Officers also found one spent casing in the driveway of Park Meadow Drive and an unoccupied vehicle that appeared to be struck with a round.
According to a police report, the incidents were believed to be related and started after a fight at the Park Meadow Apartments.
At 8:03 p.m., police were called to the apartments for a disturbance. Police said several shards of glass were found in the lower portion of the apartment building.
A resident of the apartment said she heard a “loud commotion or fight” outside her door. She told police there were a lot of men yelling and possibly physically fighting, but she was too afraid to open her door.
Sgt. Lee Frank said no arrests had been made as of Saturday night, and investigators had worked all morning to process the scene.
Contact Chelsea Miller at 329-7123 or cmiller@chroniclet.com.
Recent Comments