Police: Guns linked to Vermilion drive-by found

VERMILION — Guns police believe were used in a night of drive-by shootings have been taken from a home in Sheffield Lake. A 20-gauge shotgun and a 5.56 mm, semi-automatic "AR-15-style" rifle, were found during a search of a home in Sheffield Lake on Friday, said Vermilion police Detective Sgt. Scott Holmes. Search warrants were executed at the Sheffield Lake property and at a location in Lorain. Holmes said felony charges against two males, ages 16 and 18, "are imminent." Neither of the suspects are from Vermilion. Holmes said the Sheffield Lake home is a grandparent's residence where the younger boy stays for the summer. The shootings occurred in the early morning July 23. Multiple callers called 911, reporting they heard gunshots in the area of Brownhelm Station Road. Vermilion police investigate drive-by shooting. In a two-hour span between 3:23 a.m. and 5:33 a.m., there were four separate incidents. The first report of shots were heard in the area of Highbridge and Brownhelm Station roads, with another report less than a minute later near Brownhelm Station and Vermilion roads. Officers at the scene found nothing and cleared the scene, but at 4:07 a.m. a woman in the 3400 block of Brownhelm Station Road reported being awakened to gunfire and seeing a flash as a bullet entered her bedroom wall. She got on the floor and crawled to another room to call police. Holmes said in that incident, five shots were fired, with one hitting a tree on the property, two hitting her roof and two lodging in walls in her home. Holmes said while detectives were at that scene collecting evidence, another shooting occurred on Sunnyside Road. "We've been investigating it since that time," he said. Detectives have gathered evidence through home surveillance cameras, and surrounding departments' Flock, or license plate reading cameras, as the Vermilion Police Department does not have that technology, to build a suspect profile. They have also collected tips, the old-fashioned way. "There was some word of mouth," Holmes said. "The suspects were out there bragging about it." The weapons matched the casings retrieved at the site of shootings. The guns were turned over to the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation Monday for ballistic testing for confirmation. Anyone with information is asked to contact Detective Sgt. Holmes at (440) 967-6116. Contact Rini Jeffers at rinijeffers@gmail.com.