NOT A PEEP OUT OF BLM

Sleeping toddler, two men killed in overnight gunfire in Canton

 

By Lori Steineck

 

The Alliance Review

July 22,2020

CANTON, Ohio -- A toddler was shot to death as he slept alongside his twin brother, becoming the third person killed in the city during a six-hour wave of gun violence that began Tuesday night and stretched into Wednesday morning.

Nineteen-month-old Ace Lucas lie sleeping on a living room sofa alongside his twin brother, Arcel Lucas, at 2:28 a.m. Wednesday when shots rang out at their home in the 1600 block of Clarendon Avenue SW.

Neighbors said they had heard a car rev its engine loudly and then heard gunfire.

A woman who called 911 reported that someone fired at least seven shots into her home and she can be heard telling an emergency dispatcher that a baby had been shot in the butt.

A child can be heard crying inconsolably in the background until, shortly into the conversation, a man in the background discovers that both babies had been shot and that one was not breathing. He begins screaming as the woman pleads with the dispatcher to hurry.

Both children were taken to area hospitals where Ace Lucas died as a result of his injuries. Arcel Lucas’ injuries were not life-threatening.

Neighbors, who asked not to be identified by name because they feared for their safety, said that several children stay at the house and that the toddlers were frequently playing in the yard and on their porch. On Wednesday morning, the children’s toys lay on the sidewalk in front of the house and more toys lay on the side deck.

“They’re cute little guys. This is just pitiful,” one neighbor said.

Canton Police Chief Jack Angelo said authorities “really don’t have a lot of leads, but we’re out following up on what we have.”

In all, four men and two toddlers were shot across the city in three separate incidents. Angelo could not say whether the incidents were related nor whether gunfire was exchanged, although police found a gun at two of the shooting scenes.

Federal and state agents are assisting police.

Police said the investigation hasn’t been easy.

“The first two homicides, witnesses were uncooperative,” Angelo said. “We are back out trying to talk to them again. At a time when something like that happens, emotions are pretty high.”

He said officers are also asking residents in the area for surveillance video that any of their cameras may have captured.

Police found a gun at two of the crime scenes – one on Louisiana Avenue NW and the other at Pulley Place SW. Angelo said he did not yet know to whom the guns belong.

FIRST SHOOTING

Initially, police were called at 8:25 p.m. Tuesday to a gray, 2 1/2-story wood-frame home in the 1400 block of Louisiana Avenue NW.

“The original caller said that there was a fight involving men and women on Louisiana and then they heard gunshots,” Angelo said.

By daylight Wednesday, bullet holes could be seen riddled in the front porch. The screen door was torn off and there was broken glass.

Police arrived at the scene to find a man dead in the street and another man who made his way into the house.

Police also found a gun, the chief said.

Ronald Pleasant, 31, was dead, Angelo said, adding that a 21-year-old man who was also shot was taken by private vehicle to an area hospital. The younger man had suffered injuries described as not life-threatening.

Alfonso Pugh, who lives nearby, said he and his family didn’t see anything, but they heard the gunfire and, when the shots rang out, “We all hit the ground. We thought maybe bullets were going to come in through our house.”

Pugh said gunfire is unfortunately common in his neighborhood, adding that he and his family are preparing to move “because it’s just dangerous.”

Other neighbors, citing anonymity for fear of retaliation, said the house where the shots were fired had been home to a large group of young men in their 20s for only a couple of months. The neighbors say suspected gang members live there and “it’s been like a party all the time there.”

Police could not confirm the claim that gang members frequent that house.

SECOND SHOOTING

Officers were still at the Louisiana house when a call came in that two other men had been shot across the city.

Brandon Bushe, 20, lie in the doorway of an apartment inside the Stark Metro Housing Authority-owned complex on Pulley Place SE. Another 20-year-old man was shot nearby and, police say, his injuries were not life-threatening. Canton firefighters took both young men to area hospitals.

Bushe was pronounced dead a short time later.

On Wednesday, Kayla Pellerin sat on her back porch, looking across the street where Bushe had tried to get into a stranger’s apartment. Pellerin said the blood stains on her skin came from Bushe.

She had been sitting on her front porch when he ran through a grassy area between her building and another building. It was about 10:40 p.m. Tuesday and music was blasting from several apartments. People were on their porches, she said.

Then, she said, she heard three gunshots: “I heard pow-pow-pow. I thought it was fireworks.”

She saw a young man run past her. Pellerin believes he had seen a light on and a front door open across the street. He was screaming, “I got shot! Somebody help me! I been shot!”

She saw him open the screen door and collapse, his feet still on the porch, his head in the doorway.

And then she heard the woman who lives there screaming.

“She didn’t know him,” Pellerin said. “She didn’t know who he was.”

Bushe had been shot in the chest, police confirmed.

Pellerin said she held him as he died and she believes the bullet went through him, exiting his back.

Pellerin recognized him when she reached the porch. It was her friend’s younger brother.

“There was everybody around,” she said, tears streaming down her face. “Everybody tried to help him, everybody tried to save him. Everyone kept saying, ‘We need cold towels,’ and everyone ran to their house to get towels. I was holding him. Me and my friend. We told him an ambulance was coming. He kept saying, ‘I’m going to die, I’m going to die,’ and we just kept telling him, ‘No, you’re going to make it.’

“He was a kid. He was just a kid. He wasn’t in no trouble. It’s not like he was out here a problem to society. He was just a kid.”

Angelo said agents with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation and Identification and the FBI Safe Streets Task Force were assisting in processing the crime scenes.