Court security measures go up as bad blood spills over in 2024 Lorain murder trial

ELYRIA — Bad blood between residents of Lorain's west side and south side continued to spill over this week during a murder trial at the Lorain County Justice Center in Elyria, where a west sider is on trial for killing a south sider more than two years ago. The tension inside and outside the courtroom has been thick for three days. The anger between the two warring factions has gotten so bad that the Lorain County Sheriff's Office doubled security inside and outside Courtroom 605. Keon Reed, from Lorain's west side, is on trial in the fatal shooting of 20-year-old DaJuan "DaeDae" Townsend, from Lorain's south side, at a Sunoco gas station at Oberlin Avenue and Meister Road on May 5, 2024. Reed, 21, also known as "Bap," has pleaded not guilty to nine charges including aggravated murder, murder and felonious assault for allegedly killing Townsend and assaulting three of the dead man's friends in a hail of bullets. Fourteen jurors are considering the evidence against him, with two to be chosen as alternates once both sides have rested their cases. Name calling continued and bad behavior threatened to explode again on Wednesday as the two sides stood in the sixth floor hallway during breaks in testimony. "F--- you, mother------," a man from Townsend's side of the courtroom said to someone on Reed's side of the courtroom during a break as he walked out. A deputy escorting the Townsend supporters out of the courtroom warned the man, telling him he could be thrown out of the courthouse if he kept it up. Reed supporters inside the courtroom chuckled and wondered aloud what the man was upset about. Monday it was two groups of women, one from each neighborhood, shouting back and forth and calling each other "b----" in the hallway, with only a few feet, a victim/witness advocate from the county Prosecutor's Office and a Chronicle-Telegram reporter between them. Visiting Judge William McGinty, the retired Cuyahoga County Common Pleas judge presiding over the case in what is normally Judge Raymond Ewers' courtroom, has banned spectators from having cellphones and other recording devices. Court staff and media are not subject to that ruling. On Tuesday, spectators were made to sign in at a table set up outside the courtroom. Deputies checked their names against a sign-in sheet, and had a handheld metal detector wand ready if someone need to be scanned for contraband. Three armed Lorain County sheriff's deputies were inside the courtroom and two in the hallway outside on Wednesday. The shooting happened in the hours after the Lorain High School prom on May 4, 2024. Prosecutors and police allege Kelaina Flores parked her Mercedes Benz in front of Townsend and his friends in their Mazda sedan at pump No. 5 at the Sunoco just after 3 a.m. to block them in and allow Reed to ambush them. Flores, 22, of Fulton Road, has pleaded not guilty to five counts of complicity to aggravated murder, four counts of complicity to felonious assault and one count of possession of criminal tools, all felonies. She has waived her right to a jury, and McGinty alone will rule on the charges against her. When Reed allegedly shot at Townsend, a new father and aspiring rapper who sometimes sang about the violence between the west and south sides of Lorain, Townsend fired back and Reed responded with multiple shots, according to testimony in court. Reed, whom police said was wearing a hooded sweatshirt and mask to conceal his identity, then allegedly ran and got into a rented Nissan Sentra in the Lorain Plaza Shopping Center parking lot south of the Sunoco. Dezmariah Stovall, the driver of the Sentra, testified she and three female friends had been drinking alcohol, smoking, dancing and listening to music outside the car when the shooting happened. Stovall testified she only knew Reed by his nickname, Bap. She said she drove first to Apple Avenue in Lorain and that the group who ended up in her car split up over time until she finally got home around 5 a.m. Stovall testified she didn't know Townsend well, didn't know he had been shot and killed until days later and that she never saw Reed with a gun. She identified Reed in court but couldn't identify Flores, and testified that no one ever asked her to say she saw the shooting. In exchange for testifying truthfully in court, Stovall was not charged with a crime. Testimony resumes today. Contact Dave O'Brien at 440-329-7129 or dobrien@chroniclet.com.