YOUNGSTOWN — A Youngstown man was sentenced to five to six years in prison Thursday for firing a gun at two women in a parked car at the Mahoning County jail.

Gregory L. Lincoln, 24, of Detroit Avenue, received the jointly recommended sentence for the Oct. 1, 2023 shooting.

Lincoln pleaded guilty in March to two counts of felonious assault, one of them with a gun specification. Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court presided over the case.

A Youngstown police report states that officers were called at 4:42 p.m. Oct. 1 to the jail for a woman saying that a man she knows shot a gun at her in the jail parking lot. She was a passenger in the car with another woman who was driving.

The other woman drove across Fifth Avenue to the Youngstown State University Police Department after the gunfire.

The victim said she had gone to the jail to visit her boyfriend and was sitting in her friend’s vehicle when she saw Lincoln, her ex-boyfriend, pull into the parking lot and stop in front of her car.

With his car window down, he fired a gunshot at her from inside his car. He then parked his car, got out and fired at least once more, according to a police report.

Sheriff’s deputies found Lincoln’s cellphone, which had fallen from his car in the jail parking lot, the report states. Youngstown police also collected one spent bullet shell casing in the parking lot. The event was captured on surveillance video at the jail, which is also the headquarters for the sheriff’s office, and on video at the YSU Police Department.

Pat Fening, county assistant prosecutor, read a victim witness statement from one of the victims in court Thursday.

In it the woman said the incident has left her unable to trust people, but the incident changed her.

“I’m scared every single day I wake up. I used to be someone who trusted everyone until they gave me a reason not to. Now I don’t trust anyone. I don’t even trust the people close to me, and I hate that because that’s not the kind of person I am.”

She stated she does not “wish bad on you. I don’t even wish jail or prison on you, but your actions have put all of us in this situation. Even though none of us were physically hurt, we very well could have been. For that you do deserve some time.”

She stated she doesn’t think Lincoln is a “bad person. I think you are someone who was hurting and didn’t know what to do with all of the built-up animosity.”

Lincoln did not offer any comments when it was his turn to speak.

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