Glad the Vindicator is covering this story. The local Sharon newspaper has little to mention about this incident.

We are unfortunate to have an ownership interest in a structure in Sharon within view of where this shooting occurred. Same area a few months ago had an arson home fire (three or more arson in 3 block area in past year). About a month ago there was that guy from Arizona who was bound and beaten and kept in a closet over drugs for a week (that was a block or two away). Yesterday two blocks away from this incident there was a stabbing in a housing project.

People are so critical of the East and South sides of Youngstown, but this area of Sharon along with bordering town of Farrell are just as bad or worse. Beware of the area, as lots of property in Sharon seems like a good bargain based on purchase price, taxes are laughably high, crime is totally under-reported by the City of Sharon, unemployment is arguably highest in Pennsylvania and property values have dropped 20% or more in past 6 months here.

If you have children that like to come over to this area beware it's a volatile area with ample opportunities for trouble.

The problems of Sharon pale in comparison to Youngstown . Many from Youngstown frequent the area to deal drugs . Until the drug supply is dried up the subculture will thrive .

"Beware of this area". Is this a big sign that needs to be put up around this area of Sharon? Same for Youngstown, Cleveland and every other city in America? Why have we abandoned whole sections of every city to lawlessness? In Erie, an elderly woman lay dead for over a year in her house before being discovered. In Cleveland, over a dozen women were killed in one house in a neighborhood abandoned by society. Youngstown's South and East side are vast wastelands. Why do we allow this to happen? Has "redlining" taken on a new definition referring to blood?

Well stated Attis ! The poor deserve to live under the protection of the law also . The criminals are actively recruiting on the streets along with bloodletting . Known drug houses should be shutdown and not tolerated . Stakeouts should include live video . Record all activity and document the perpetrators . DNA should be recorded for future reference when they are booked . Ohio needs three strikes and your out laws .

well as a resident of Farrell we would be better served if our police would atrol for crime instead of pulling over citizens who have tose tree air fresheners dangling from their rear view mirror. Also maybe the should be patrolling instead of hiding in parking lots on MLK. maybe im wrong but theese were just my thoughts on more effective policing

Attis, good points. Vast swathes of these old over-developed high density population centers should come bearing warning. The biggest and best way to accomplish this is for the local PD's to report all crimes to the FBI system that calculates these things and determines in part funding for crime initiatives. All the places you mention have major PD issues, lack of staffing, lack of funding, lack of leadership in some instances. Most officers are allowed to not do their paperwork since they are sooo busy with calls. In the end the numbers are upwards of 50% off in some places and thus funding from outside is also limited and it creates a self sustaining circle - a downward spiral that the tax paying citizens of these hot spot areas are forced to endure. Eventually the honest citizens say enough and move out or in local terms they just abandon their property often since they cannot get anything for it; thus, creating more issues.

I haven't said it here yet, but we need to legalize drugs - get your drugs legally at a pharmacy with a legal script. Force these lazy bums to resort to some other criminal livelihood or god forbid, get a job.

If we are to continue this failed war on drugs then government should hit hard and exact on the issue. Gun fire sensors should be installed in all high crime areas, CCTV high resolution cameras should be installed in problem areas, severe penalties including property forfeiture should be pursued to those that rent to the drug dealers and buyers. Neighbors dealing with the issues from the drug culture should be free to return hostile fire and use deadly force without question when being subject to these dirtbags and their criminal activities.

I feel terrible for people born and raised in places like Youngstown, Farrell and Sharon. These places have become unsalvageable crime nests. The vast ghetto'ization of these areas is fairly unbelievable even to academics I know who study these types of social issues. Combined they all seem to be suffering from the same plague that Detroit is most notorious for - rap culture, single mother households, lack of eduction, prevalence of violent crime, drug and alcohol addiction and overt poverty due to the aforementioned.

Woolyd, I agree PD resources and especially the court's resources would be better used pursuing real issues rather than botched over-enforcement and illegal profiling of air-freshner citations. However, I'll note, the two fellows stopped in that incident had drugs in the vehicle they were illegally driving have somewhat extensive local criminal records and I believe an illegal firearm in the vehicle. Just the kind of issues that grow into bigger ones.

Sharon's paper finally reporting news on this shooting/homicide online.

All the folks involved have records and police know them and the address where this occurred has been scene of a robbery, and n very close proximity to recent arson and likely a rental property in an area where the blind, deaf and dumb all can sense there needs to be something done about crime.

One of the people picked up in the investigation for arranging the drug buy gone wrong was per se a known entity to local police. He was charged in August 2008 for burglary and sexual assault.
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Alexander N. Lee, 27, of 395 New Castle Ave., Sharon, was charged with sexual assault and burglary. District Judge Ronald E. Antos, Farrell, held the charges for court at a preliminary hearing Wednesday.

The assault occurred July 14 in the 1500 block of Parke Drive when he initiated sex while the woman slept, police said.
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Now, maybe if the local courts in Mercer County would start taking these people seriously and stop reducing their charges to fines-only and similarly non punitive sentences then these folks wouldn't even be on the streets causing problems.

One of the people shot in this incident - arranging to buy a pound of marijuana- was arrested a mere day before by Probation and Parole:
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Mark A. McNulty Jr., 21, of 353 Davis St., Sharon, was arrested at 2:30 p.m. Oct. 28 at Wendy’s Old Fashioned Hamburgers, 120 N. Hermitage Road, by agents of Pennsylvania Probation and Parole on a probation violation for entering the fast-food restaurant when he had been banned from there, police said. A charge of possession of drug paraphernalia was added when police found two marijuana pipes in his van, police said.
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Back in September of 2008 the SAME guy was charged for possession of weapon while being investigated in a burglary:
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Mark A. McNulty Jr., 20, of 1535 Parke Drive, Hermitage, has been charged with prohibited offensive weapon for having metal knuckles at home when police searched his apartment at 11:05 p.m. Aug. 24 during a burglary investigation, police said.
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Then in August 2008 he was charged for more fun:
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Mark A. McNulty Jr., 20, of 1535 Parke Drive, Hermitage, has been charged with theft for stealing $20 from a relative’s wallet at 7:51 p.m. Aug. 19 in the 1500 block of Parke Drive, police said.

(continued)

April 29 of this year the address of 833 Wallis where this drug deal occurred was the same address where a pizza delivery driver was robbed:
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Police said the trio called in the order to be delivered to an address not associated with any of them, and approached James Ardman, who works for Domino’s Pizza, at 833 Wallis Ave., Sharon, police said.

While Crawford held the man at gunpoint, one of the juveniles relieved the man of the food, and the other went through the victim’s pockets, police said.

Timothy A. Crawford, 28, of 411 Malleable St., had charges of robbery, conspiracy to commit robbery, two counts of unlawful restraint and corruption of minors held to court at a preliminary hearing before District Judge Henry J. Russo.

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Now the address of 1535 Parke in Hermitage, PA is a housing project. Both Alexander who setup the drug buy and McNulty who was shot shared this address in the recent past.'

If you look at the 411 Malleable address it is former address of Michael Bagnall who was involved in a fairly ugly gun point robbery of someone from Sharpsville and finally sentenced to upwards of 15 years.

His younger brother was involved in a shooting incident last year on Malleable involving him and other underage youths. The shooting involved a car that came upon the underage youths in a dispute with a homeowner. The occupants of the car fired upon the homeowner with handguns striking him in abdomen and hitting two nearby houses. Worth noting that the vehicle in that shooting and this shooting was described I believe as a dark color Monte Carlo.

Now to summarize, Wallis and Malleable are border streets of two housing projects. The residents use yards and entire area for their misdoings. Those kicked out of the projects end up as renters on Malleable, Wallis, New Castle and some other streets where property owners will rent to anyone - since no decent people will rent in that area.

Enough is enough. Mercer County needs to have housing police to deal with their residents or close these crime nests already. This is just the tip of the iceberg, there have been many robberies, burglaries, arsons, thefts, assaults, etc. in the several years we have been paying attention to the area.

Paul B you make valid points and i understand that the police officer was scared but the fact remains he did an illegal search and they had no weapons on this occasion. The same officer pulled me over june 08 for this air freshener violation. In court he told the judge a variety of reasons as to why he pulled me over which just left the judge shaking his head. The judge ANTOS a former officer told this man to stop bringing these sill cases to his court because its going to eventually lead to a lawsuit against the city. This officer has been reprimanded by his chief for insubordination because he refused to properly iron and wear his uniform. Also the time he pulled me over there were several people standing on the corner and in the alley by a bar notoriously known for drug activity which he should have been monitoring instead of a law abiding citizen driving down the road. The main problem is these officers come from rural areas such as west middlesex, mercer, shenango twp, etc and already have prejudice towards those who live in the city. Farrell is not as bad as people try to make it out to be and in most cases its citizens from other areas such as where the McNultys are from that come to Farrell and get in trouble for trying to buy drugs.
I must mention also that the police are kind of at fault for the recent surge in violent crime in the cities of Farrell and Sharon. When the police started Weed and Seed they arrested several local families that were involved in drug sales. These people may not have been right in selling but most knew who ran the drug game and these individuals were not engaging in drug play. These individuals were supplying the demand and although it may be wrong they diddnt shoot and kill people. A

After the feds came in the local police proudly boasted about the drug business being destroyed in the community. Immediately after citizens from Youngstown, New Castle, Detroit,Pittsburgh, and Cleveland decided to relocate to the area because they knew the community lacked a drug supply. And with that came the increase in gun play and violent crimes. So in a strange way the police in destroying the local drug trade have no brought in a new drug element which is willing to do what the previous regime wouldnt. And that is murder, felonious assault, rape, robbery, burglary, etc which a small police force of 20-25 officers cant handle.

Woolyd, I feel bad that you were stopped also for the infamous air freshner excuse. It seems like one officer might be bringing these bogus charges in the Southwest PD.

I highly recommend if this is the case someone talk to the supervising officer or Smoot himself about the issue. It is legally bogus to pull folks over solely on the air freshner visual obstruction excuse. The Pennsylvania Courts have said such repeatedly in other cases. If they won't stop the bevahior then get a civil attorney and bring a suit against the PD and the Farrell. Needless to say, neither has two dimes to defend a suit and if won legally in court you could receive about all the empty land in Farrell in lieu of payment.

Woolyd, I will say though you should consider relocating for sanity and safety. For instance we see the PD's stopping people on New Castle Ave, sometimes in questionable ways, so we never ever drive down New Castle - we avoid it. Same with Wallis, same with Malleable, etc.

I heard plenty of little old white lady stories in the area about seniors getting pulled over from not completely stopping at signs and similar and they are amazed at being hassled consider the danger in the area that needs addressed.

About the drugs, it's pretty terrible when 10+ people are involved in a murder over a mere $1500. That's how broke and stupid people in these areas have become. If the locals don't like being broke and stupid, they need to clean up the place, educate their neighbors and start businesses. Things are only going to get worse as unemployment here is so high and too many people have never worked a day in their life.

it is terrible but the crazy thing is the police expect citizens to help and they refuse because of the police behavior. i did talk to Smoot who has known me since i was born. Rileys hands are tied because hes in the unenviable position of having to side with his job over people hes known forever. furthermore Riley has taken action against these citations however pressure from the da has stopped this ya know money, money, money

I've lived in several very large inner cities along the East Coast - even in 'bad' neighborhoods and I've never seen such a disgraceful situation as what we have in Sharon and Farrell.

We have that moron Dupus Scott who now has been charged in last Christmas-time's crack homicide on Roemer - the same guy has been involved in no fewer than three other shootings. With one him and his homeboys intimidated the witnesses so bad they moved out of town and refused to cooperate any further with police. Same punk kid was involved in last years shooting at playground at a local school. These are the wannabe drug dealer / gang bangers that the area is doing a fine job of breeding.

Here's the barn burner- the Sharon paper today is carrying a piece about how luxurious and costly healthcare for county inmates is - as if a rebuttal to Obamacare bill passing and as to justify the revolving door quick justice system of Mercy county. Average county stay : 17 days. Housing for 266 inmates... What a piece of garbage paper the Sharon Herald is. They even removed the public comments/forums a few months back because people were starting to actually raise their voices about the issues in these parts.

Mercer County just built a new jail to deal with over crowding and they went from like 150 to 250 capacity.. Who makes the decisions in this county to do such dumb things when crime has been rising for decades here?

Biggest issue is local authorities need to be held accountable. I say we make them live for a month or two back on Malleable or New Castle or Wallis or a number of other terrible Valley streets. Sue their asses if they harass you about an air freshner. If Smoot doesn't have the spine to control his underlings then append his name as a party to the suit.

Sad thing is he is a genuinely good man in a bad situation. when he was a streetcop if he saw you do wrong he would lecture you instead of citing you (unless he had to make an arrest). After a Smoot speach you would have preferred getiing cited but he showed you respect and dignity and asked for the same. The problem now is society doesnt respect the police and there are so many cops out there that dont deserve it. A sour society has gotten worse so have those who are to protect us. Smoot wants accountability and those higher up want the money of crazy fines and laws and they want to fill the county jail. The CJ System is a money maker and who better to try and get it from but those poorer people of Farrell and Sharon? These cities have been hit hard by the loss of the Steel industry, then drugs, now police forces that want to destroy those who are trying to live clean.But hey atleast we have our Farrell Steelers 10-0 and hopefully they will beat the refs and their opponents and win that state title because afterall us Farrellites still have BLUE and GOLD PRIDE