LAKEWOOD, Ohio (WJW) — The FOX 8 I-Team has obtained chilling video of wild gunfire, with a man on the Lakewood-Cleveland border firing an AK-47.
Lakewood police said that video helped solve a mystery sparked when the sound of gunfire ripped through the quiet Edgewater neighborhood in Cleveland.
Last week, we showed you people there were terrified after they heard multiple bursts of gunfire in the middle of the night. That gunfire was a mystery until Lakewood police uncovered video from a parking lot.
It shows a man pull out a powerful AK-47 and start shooting. You see him firing into the air across the street, then calmly jogging away.
We took that video to a man living nearby, one of many people there who have been demanding more protection from Cleveland police.
He saw the video and said, “Oh my word.”
“That could’ve easily hit one of my neighbors, or one of my family members asleep at night. You don’t expect people to be walking around Edgewater neighborhood with heavy artillery. There’s just no need,” he said.
Lakewood police tracked down Saey-Vonn Trumbo and arrested him. Body camera video from that arrest shows an officer asking, “Where’s the gun?”
The video shows officers getting the AK-47 from an apartment.
At the scene of the arrest, Trumbo told police, “Somebody tried to attempt to shoot at me. I heard gunshots going off at the corner of the street.”
Lakewood police Capt. Frank Eschweiler spoke about the AK-47, saying it’s a “very dangerous weapon that’s going to go through houses.”
The captain told us police built their case with a tip call, detective work and video from the parking lot.
“If we wouldn’t have had that video, we probably wouldn’t have figured this out, because they had great video down there,” Eschweiler said.
A report shows Trumbo admitted firing shots there after having trouble with two guys at a bar who have been in the headlines for gunfire before.
At the justice center, investigators just indicted Trumbo. He now faces a felony charge tied to firing a gun in public. Records show he’s pleaded not guilty. A police report indicates he already has a record for two other gun cases.
The homeowner who reacted to the video said he hopes this case leads police to do even more to take back his streets.
“[There is] no reason to have a gun like that anywhere near where I sleep at night,” he said.
Lakewood police are now doing follow-up testing to find out if that gun has been used in any other crimes.
We also reached out to Cleveland police about what’s going on in that area, but we did not immediately get a response.