A man about to get his hair cut in an Akron barbershop pulled out a gun from under his cape and started firing after being confronted by another man, then fled the scene, running down the street with the barber’s cape still attached.
Two men and a teenage boy were wounded in the shooting around 11 a.m. Thursday morning, Akron police said.
A 20-year-old man came into RP Blade Academy at 515 W. Exchange St. on the near west side and began yelling at a customer seated in the chair, Lt. Rick Edwards said. The man in the chair pulled out a gun and began shooting, hitting the 20-year-old and two other customers.
The shooter has not been found. Neither has the gun.
Among those shot was a 49-year-old from Tallmadge who is a staff member of a local Salvation Army unit. He was wounded in the shoulder and taken to Summa Akron City Hospital.
The 20-year-old Akron man was shot in the abdomen, arm and chest and also taken to City Hospital.
A 17-year-old Akron boy was shot in the ankle and taken to Cleveland Clinic Akron General.
All three victims were in stable condition late Thursday afternoon, Edwards said.
He stressed this was not a robbery but what appears to be a feud.
The shooter is described by police as a 20- to 30-year-old black male with light to medium complexion, 5 feet, 6 inches tall, 145 pounds, wearing horn-rimmed glasses, designer blue jeans with tears down the front and gray underwear, according to police. He has a 1-inch Afro hairstyle.
On Thursday afternoon, police officers could be seen inside the shop taking measurements. Evidence placards at least up to No. 22 could be seen on the floor along with a broom, hair clippings and scattered barber’s capes.
The owner of the barbershop couldn’t be reached for comment.
A woman working behind the counter at nearby Temo’s chocolates said she saw a man running from the direction of the barbershop come to the chocolate shop’s front door, which is always locked. Unable to get in, he ran off heading toward downtown.
The woman would not give her name because the shooter was still at large.
“I didn’t think nothing of it. I thought he wanted to come in and get some candy but we weren’t open by that time yet,” she said. “Next thing I know, we see all these cops going up the street and then they had the firetruck up here ... we didn’t know whether we were going to open the door or not because we didn’t know what was going on.
“We asked the police what happened and they said that there was somebody in the chair that shot somebody because they said, ‘Get out of the chair.’ So he shot three people. ... The cops came back in here and said somebody said they saw someone go down the street and it looked like they put something in the wall. They didn’t find the gun.”
The woman said after things started calming down, the same man who had tried to enter the front door earlier came in through the back door and tried to get out the front door. Finding it still locked, he turned around and left. The first time he came to the door, he had the barber cape on, she said, but the second time the cape was gone.
“It’s kind of scary, but as long as it wasn’t a robbery ... but it still shouldn’t have been nobody shot. Just a little fuss or something like that, they could have handled that with fistfighting and let it go,” the woman said.
Police are asking anyone with information to contact the Akron Police Department Detective Bureau at 330-375-2490.
Monica L. Thomas can be reached at 330-996-3827 or mthomas@thebeaconjournal.com. Follow her on Twitter @MLThomasABJ and https://www.facebook.com/MLThomasABJ. Staff writer Paula Schleis contributed to this report.