WARREN — Less than a month after Mayor Doug Franklin released a statement addressing ongoing violence in the city, a homicide occurred early Monday in the 1900 block of South Feederle Drive SE in Warren.

Officers responded to a call for shots fired around 2 a.m. and found the victim, Brandon Reed, 51, who had been shot multiple times, according to a police report. He died at Trumbull Regional Medical Center a short time later.

Detectives are investigating the shooting. Anyone who has information regarding the case is asked to contact detective Nicole Smith at 330-841-2684.

Warren Safety / Service Director Eddie Colbert expressed his concern about the recent spate of violence as a father, rather than “a man with a title.”

“Forget the title,” Colbert said. “I know there are parents out there checking social media every day, just to make sure their kids are still alive. As we learned with the 9-year-old who was recently hit by a stray bullet, there are no names on them. I’m a father of a 15-year-old and an 11-year-old. There are times when I have to tell my 15-year-old, because he could be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that he can’t go places or do things with his friends.”

Social media was targeted during a recent city council meeting that addressed violence.

“It has come to the attention of my office that there are named individuals who are willfully choosing to use their influence and skill on social media to instigate and promote violence in our city. These acts of violence and related activities are not welcome in our great city,” Franklin said at the meeting.

“The violence must end. The violence in our city and across our nation is not out of our control like a natural disaster. This is avoidable and controllable by us.”

“We must all come together and solve this,” Colbert added Monday.

He emphasized that city government can’t put anything into place that can steer individuals from shooting each other, and there are “no magic potions” to stop the violence. Colbert suggested that blaming everyone except the perpetrators has not made for better results.

“Not just as a city, but we will be able to stop this as a country by taking a holistic approach,” Colbert said. “Shaming people into not pulling triggers has been done, but resolving these issues depends on how much help we can get from the community.”

Franklin asserted that the community’s cooperation is important for carrying out homicide investigations.

“We’re doing all we can with the resources we have available. It’s very early in the investigation, but we always appreciate community cooperation, as it always helps to break these investigations,” Franklin said Monday.

Three shootings occurred in downtown Warren on June 4, near a Subway restaurant, on the last day of the annual African American Achievers Association Festival. Two large fights on Parkman Road, one involving more than 100 people, also happened in early June.

A stray bullet struck a 9-year-old girl while she was sleeping on June 18, and caused a bone in her arm to shatter. When she was brought to St. Elizabeth Youngstown Hospital, and later transported to Akron Children’s Hospital, she needed surgery to repair her arm and remove the bullet.

Investigators believed the bullet to have come from the area of the Big Apple Supermarket parking lot on Youngstown Warren Road, not far from the home.

dnewman@tribtoday.com