South Side neighbors trade news after agent shot

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By DENISE DICK

and JEANNE STARMACK

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITERS

YOUNGSTOWN — In the neighborhoods near East Judson Avenue, children rode bikes in the streets.

Toddlers played in driveways Wednesday evening, and groups of people sat on their front porches or gathered on sidewalks.

It looked like any other pleasant, summer afternoon on quiet blocks of city side streets.

But something wasn't quite normal. People weren't laughing and chatting. They were staring, some with arms folded across their chests, at the police cars that crawled around or sat parked next to intersections.

They watched as police and federal agents in bulletproof vests searched in yards and went house to house looking for a city man suspected in the shooting of a federal agent during an undercover operation.

The suspect was identified as William Amos, aka Demetrios Lee, 22, of Market Street.

The wounded agent, a five-year veteran of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, was shot in the foot at a house on East Judson on the city's South Side. His identity has not been released, nor where he was taken for treatment.

It probably never will be because of his undercover status, said Bob Miller, resident agent in charge of the Youngstown ATF field office.

Amos had not been found by press time. A makeshift command center the law enforcement agencies had in a parking lot at Avondale and Southern Boulevard was gone by 8:30 p.m.

The neighborhood seemed back to normal, with no sign that hours earlier, ATF, FBI, Drug Enforcement Administration and U.S. Marshal Task Force agents as well as city and Boardman police, Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers and Mahoning County deputy sheriffs had descended on it after the shooting around 3 p.m.

Neighbors

Residents of nearby streets had gathered then, trying to get news of what happened.

"This was a long time coming," said one woman who lives nearby. She didn't want her name to be used.

She was referring to the brick two-story house where the shooting occurred.

"A lot of traffic in and out of there," her husband added.

The couple, seated on their porch, watched the search unfold.

"Other than that, this is a pretty nice neighborhood," the man said.

Another woman who lives on Elbertus Avenue didn't see the shooting.

"I just heard the shots and I thought, 'That sounds like gunshots,'" she said.

Into the evening, people congregated across the street from the command center in the parking lot. Some of them knew what had happened. Others did not.

A woman who was watching two toddlers on her front porch said she wasn't told "a darned thing." She seemed surprised that the hunt was for someone who was still armed.

"They haven't put out a general alert, said her neighbor, although she did see the news on TV, she added.

Plenty of warning

Two Youngstown police officers who could not officially give their names for the record said people should have had plenty of warning that a search was on for a dangerous man.

"They've been going door-to-door," one officer pointed out. "And it's been on the news."

One woman on Lucius Avenue said she had no idea what was going on because she'd just gotten home from work.

And three boys on bicycles, about 10 to 12 years old, said they didn't see any need to go home. They weren't afraid — they intended to help police find the suspect.

"What'll they pay, 50 bucks?" one asked.

"If we find him, we'll call you," another promised a Vindicator reporter.

Sgt. Cynthia Dellick, the turn commander on duty Wednesday evening at YPD, said police don't go through the streets with a loudspeaker to tell people about a manhunt.

"We usually set up a perimeter and try to clear everybody off the street," she said. "Some people, you can't make do anything. We tell them."

She said the mayor would be called if police needed to issue an emergency order for a lockdown or curfew.

Mayor Jay Williams confirmed that an emergency executive order from him is a tool the city has to keep people out of harm's way in a manhunt. "If they felt they needed an executive order, I'm a phone call away," he said.

There was no request for an order in this case, he said, but he believes that officers and agents at the scene took the public's safety into consideration.

"There is a science to doing this," he said. "They go through years of training. He said he's confident public safety was utmost in officers and agents' minds.

Dean Michael, who oversees the U.S. Marshal's involvement of the Mahoning Valley Violent Crimes Task Force, said investigators began relying on "other avenues" as darkness approached.

He said there were no reports at that time of any sightings of Amos. "But we aren't giving up," he said.

Police said that two other people had been taken into custody after the shooting. No information was available on the identities or charges.

Thursday, July 19, 2007