Staff file photo / Ed Runyan Yarnell Green cries during a hearing in March 2021, when he was arraigned in Youngstown Municipal Court on a weapons charge involving a gun found in a car. The charge was dismissed in July after he completed a diversion program. He cried while talking to a magistrate about his co-defendant in the case, girlfriend Alexis Schneider, who was Rowan Sweeney’s mom.

YOUNGSTOWN — Yarnell C. Green, a central figure in the Sept. 21, 2020, murder of 4-year-old Rowan Sweeney in Struthers, is the man shot to death early Sunday on West Federal Street downtown.

A Youngstown Police Department news release Monday identified Green, 32, as the victim of the 1:39 a.m. shooting near the Hazel Street intersection. Police also announced that Johnny Serrano, 23, has been arrested and charged with murder in Green’s death.

Capt. Jason Simon of the detective division said Green and Serrano argued inside O’Donold’s Irish Pub, 122 W. Federal St., and both were kicked out of the bar. Green was shot outside of the bar “within minutes” after that, Simon said.

It was Green who in court had identified a gunman in Rowan’s death.

When asked if he thought the dispute was connected to the child’s killing, Simon said he’s not aware of any connection between the two. “But we have no way of saying for sure.”

Simon also said killings in the downtown area in recent memory are so rare, he called it “the only one.” He said Sunday’s downtown killing is “the only one I’m conscious of.”

SERIES OF EVENTS

The police release stated that detectives George Anderson and Michael Cox interviewed witnesses and watched surveillance footage to reconstruct “the series of events that led to the shooting.”

Police said earlier that patrol officers on foot in the downtown area heard the gunfire and ran toward it, observing a large crowd of people fleeing the area and then saw the victim on the ground with multiple gunshot wounds.

The man was taken to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

The location of the shooting is less than a block from the back of the police station, across the street from the 7th District Court of Appeals building.

The investigation will continue “as there are other parties involved and witnesses who need to be interviewed,” the statement adds.

The detective division asks anyone who saw anything to call Crime Stoppers at 330-746-CLUE or 330-746 8YPD to report that information.

SWEENEY CASE

Green was one of four adults who were in the house at the time young Rowan was shot to death Sept. 21, 2020, in a home on Perry Street. Rowan was there with his mother, Schneider, and Green, who was Schneider’s boyfriend.

Green was notable for testifying in Mahoning County Juvenile Court on Feb. 5, 2021, that defendant Brandon Crump Jr., now 19, was the shooter who killed Rowan.

Also shot were Schneider and two other adults, Cassandra Marsicola and Andre McCoy, 22. McCoy later was indicted with Kimonie Bryant, 26, and Crump on aggravated murder and other offenses.

At the time, a Mahoning County grand jury had indicted Bryant on aggravated murder and other charges in the case. Crump, then 17, had been charged at the time only with the aggravated robbery of Green the day Rowan was killed.

After that, Mahoning County prosecutors told Judge Anthony D’Apolito of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court that they did not know whether Bryant or Crump was the shooter, and they believed analysis of DNA collected in the case might provide the answer.

The DNA results are expected to come in early November.