Feb. 6, 2011: A Youngstown State Police University officer patrols the street near the location of an early morning shooting at a fraternity 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. (AP)
A day after a college student was shot dead at an Ohio fraternity house and 11 people were wounded, the governor, college officials and friends were hoping to find some explanation for the violence.
Authorities said two men had left the party at a Youngstown State University fraternity house after a dispute early Sunday and then returned and sprayed bullets into the crowd.
The suspects -- 19-year-old Braylon Rogers and 22-year-old Columbus E. Jones Jr. -- were arrested Sunday in connection with the shooting that killed 25-year-old Jamail E. Johnson and injured eleven others, including a 17-year-old with a critical head wound.
The men, both of Youngstown, are each charged with one count of aggravated murder, one count of shooting into a home and 11 counts of felonious assault.
The suspects, who are being held at the Mahoning County Jail, are expected to be arraigned Tuesday, police tell Fox News. Authorities requested that their court appearance be delayed until Tuesday because of possible new developments that could lead to more charges.
Johnson, a senior at Youngstown State University, was killed as he tried to separate two groups at the Omega Psi Phi fraternity house party. Authorities say there had been a dispute, and the two men had left the gathering and then returned and, shooting bullets into the crowd.
"These guys were in the location for a little while before the shooting occurred," Youngstown police Chief Jimmy Hughes said. "Something happened that they became unhappy. They had some type of altercation."
The shooting occurred at a two-story brick house in a neighborhood of once-elegant homes, many of which are now boarded up. The house party had been bustling with 50 or more people early Sunday, Hughes said.
The Mahoning County coroner's office said Johnson 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.
"[Johnson] was just an excellent, excellent young man, and our loss runs deep," said Christopher Cooper, a legal officer for Omega Psi Phi fraternity. The senior had recently traveled to North Carolina for a fraternity program emphasizing manhood and scholarship, Cooper said.
Johnson's fraternity brothers were trying to decide whether to return to the house, he said.
They were "very solemn, very alarmed, very hurt," Cooper said.
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, Cooper said.
"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 urban campus in northeast Ohio near the Pennsylvania border. The university has about 15,000 students with alumni including former Kansas Jayhawks football coach Mark Mangino and fashion designer Nanette Lepore.
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.
Click here to read more on the Youngstown State University shooting at Fox8.com
The Associated Press contributed to this report
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