YOUNGSTOWN — The Youngstown Police Department gathered evidence at the intersection of Fifth and Madison avenues on the North Side and in the 500 block of west Warren Avenue on the South Side early Thursday as a result of overnight gunfire.

Officers were stationary near Oak Street and Rice Avenue at 1:40 a.m. Thursday when they heard gunfire coming from U.S. Route 422 or state Route 62. An officer entered Route 422 at Oak Street while other officers went to the entrance to Route 62 on Albert Street. The officer on Route 422 saw a vehicle driving the same direction on the highway, then getting off at the Fifth Avenue exit. The officer followed behind, then got out to speak to the driver when he stopped his vehicle, a police report states.

He asked the driver if he was OK, and he said he was but he was just shot at while on an on-ramp, though it was not clear where the location was. He said he had been at a friend’s house and then got a call from his children’s mother asking him to pick her up at “another unknown location,” so he was behind a black Dodge Charger with green stripes. He said he thinks someone in the car thought he was following them, and they fired gunshots at him. He told the officer he did not have a weapon.

Officers then placed the man in the back of a cruiser and checked the car with the man’s permission. When the man told a police supervisor the story again, he mentioned that he had been in the 1400 block of East Midlothian Boulevard earlier in the evening, when officers responded to reports of large crowds and fighting, the report states.

It could not be determined whether the man was involved in the earlier fighting. His car was towed from the scene, and his girlfriend later picked him up. Officers searched the area and found about 22 spent rifle bullet casings on the entrance ramp to state Route 62 and one nonrifle bullet casing. Officers collected and preserved the evidence.

The report did not mention whether there were any bullet holes in the man’s vehicle.

At 2:43 a.m. Thursday, officers were called to the 500 block of West Warren Avenue on the South Side for gunfire. They found spent shell casings in front of one home. They were from guns of different calibers, the report states. No victim or damaged property was found.