Samaritans can’t save gunshot victim

Staccato gunshots echoed down the street, a burst of five or six even thuds in the early morning. Neighbors crept to their windows to peek below. A few women rushed from their homes, carrying towels for the victims.

When they made it to 4th Avenue and 9th Street in the Milo-Grogan neighborhood soon after 3 a.m. yesterday, they found a silver Honda Accord that had slammed into a house. Slumped behind the steering wheel was a young man with a bullet wound through his neck, neighbors said. The driver’s car door had two small holes.

Medics later pronounced Stevaun M.

THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Jessie, 20, dead at the scene.

A man in a blue polo shirt and matching hat was on the ground near the car, bleeding from gunshot wounds in his face and side.

“He started praying,” said one of the women who helped. She asked not to be named for fear of retaliation. “I told him not to die, and he just laid there.”

Christopher C. Maxwell, 20, was taken to a hospital and was in stable condition yesterday, police said.

Two other men had been in the car, too, neighbors said, and had gotten out to help their friends after the shooting. A news release from police doesn’t mention those men.

Whoever fired the shots was gone by the time neighbors arrived to press towels against wounds and call police.

Three years ago, Jessie was a student at Independence High School, according to records from the Columbus City Schools district. Earlier, he attended Fort Hayes High School. His last address is listed as 1568 Cunard Rd. on the East Side. Family members couldn’t be reached yesterday.

According to a police account, Jessie and Maxwell were shot while the car was headed south on 9th, near 5th Avenue, a block north of where it crashed. That puts the shooting by the brick wall outside Quin Canady’s upstairs bedroom, where she was halfasleep until she heard shots.

She counted at least four rapid, steady shots. “I thought somebody was getting shot on my porch; that’s how close it was,” she said.

As of yesterday, police knew of no suspect or motive.

Detectives stayed at the scene for hours. A group of neighbors gathered nearby to recount what they heard and saw.

Jessie’s death was the 43rd homicide of the year in Columbus.