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2 arrested in fatal Ohio shooting

(Agencies)
Updated: 2011-02-07 08:28

YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio – Two men have been arrested and charged in a shooting at an Ohio fraternity house that killed one student and injured 11 people at a party near Youngstown State University campus, police said Sunday.

What appears to be blood stains the street near the scene of an early morning shooting at a house just north of the Youngstown State University campus that left student Jamail E. Johnson, 25 of Youngstown, dead and 11 injured, In Youngstown, Ohio Sunday, Feb. 6, 2011. [Photo/Xinhua]

Each man is charged with aggravated murder, shooting into a house and 11 counts of felonious assault, Youngstown police Chief Jimmy Hughes said.

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The suspects are in their early 20s and from the Youngstown area, but he withheld their names pending further investigation. One suspect surrendered to police, and the other was arrested at his home, he said.

Hughes said he wasn't sure if either man has a criminal record.

The suspects were involved in a dispute at the party, left the event, then returned and began firing outside the house, which had been bustling with 50 or more people early Sunday, he said.

"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 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, and an autopsy is planned Monday, said Dr. Joseph Ohr, a forensic pathologist with the coroner's office.

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.

Omega Psi Phi doesn't own the house, said Christopher Cooper, a legal officer for the fraternity.

"This is one of those days that every university president across the country, as well as many other officials, always dread," university president Cynthia Anderson said at a news conference on campus.

Anderson said she had been assured by police that there was no threat to the northeast Ohio campus.

The shooting happened at a two-story brick house in a neighborhood of once-elegant homes, many of which are now boarded up. No one answered a knock at the door Sunday afternoon.

A neighbor, Rodger Brown, 54, said the house and an adjacent home with Greek lettering indicating a fraternity often have parties on Friday and Saturday nights but had caused no problems in the neighborhood.

"It's a nice, quiet neighborhood," he said. Brown said men living in the house were friendly to him and once offered him a beer and a ride as he walked home last fall.