COLUMBUS – One man was killed and six others hurt, including a 9-year-old, in separate shooting incidents Monday and Tuesday, one of which ended in a salon’s parking lot.
Ricardo Mercado Garcia was driving his pickup truck southbound on South Grener Avenue near the intersection with Frost Avenue in Prairie Township at approximately 3:30 a.m. when someone in a dark colored car opened fire on the truck, striking Garcia, who was pronounced dead at the scene, Franklin County Sheriff Dallas Baldwin said.
No one else was injured and no arrests had been made early Tuesday.
Anyone with any information about this homicide, to contact the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office Detective Bureau 614-525-3351.
Because Mercado’s death occurred in Prairie Township, it was not included in the total number of homicides in Columbus this year, which reached 167 (corrects number) over the weekend.
Three people were shot and a child was injured in a drive-by shooting on the Northeast Side early Tuesday morning.
Witnesses told police that suspects approached the victims outside an apartment building in the 1600 block of Alona Drive just before 2:30 a.m. Tuesday and opened fire without provocation, striking two women outside on the patio and a man who was inside the apartment, Sgt. Doug Jones of the Felony Assault Unit said.
The victims were transported to area hospitals and are expected to survive.
A 9-year-old boy was hurt, though not by gunfire, according to reports.
A man was charged with two counts of felonious assault after police say he shot at a couple as they drove on Polaris Parkway at approximately 12:30 p.m. Monday, causing the couple to crash their vehicle in the parking lot of a Penzone’s Salon and Spa at the intersection of Polaris Parkway and S. Old State Road, according to Sgt. James Jardine.
Emmanuel Payne, 21, and Cora Fellure, 20, told police they were traveling east on Polaris Parkway when Xavier Jackson and three other men, who were in a silver Chevrolet Malibu, began following them.
Payne, 21, said one of the individuals inside the car began shooting at them, striking their vehicle multiple times.
Payne and Fellure, 20, were not injured by the gunfire but, while fleeing from the suspects, Payne and crashed into two parked vehicles in the salon’s parking lot and Fellure was taken to a hospital as a precaution because of injuries she suffered in the crash, Jardine said.
Jackson, 19, was later arrested and charged with two counts of felonious assault.