FARRELL — Five people are in jail facing a litany of charges including aggravated assault after a Sunday morning shooting at a Farrell bottle club and a subsequent police chase that ended at a sharp curve on Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard.
The bottle club was closed until further notice after an inspection by city code, safety and law enforcement officials found numerous violations, code officer Mark Yerskey said.
On Monday afternoon Eric Branch stood outside Big E’s, 313 Union St., shaking his head. The Sharon man owns the bottle club, but said he’s been “laid up” for a couple months and wasn’t there for the chaos, which left two people with gunshot wounds in their buttocks and another with a bloodied face caused by a bullet.
The people with the butt wounds were treated at Sharon Regional Health System and the person with the facial wound is in UPMC Presbyterian, Pittsburgh, Southwest Mercer County Police Chief Riley Smoot said. He didn’t release their names.
Witnesses said Big E’s was packed just after 2 a.m. when the shots rang out. The club holds about 200 people, Branch said.
Southwest Mercer County Police Cpl. Charles Rubano and patrolman Jon Wasser were on patrol a few blocks away on Roemer Boulevard when they heard the gunfire and headed toward it on Lee Avenue, according to state police affidavits.
Police tried to stop a car and a sport-utility vehicle that headed toward them on Lee — a one-way street — and drove past them, heading toward Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. At the curve near Daffin’s Candies’ Spearman Avenue factory, the SUV crashed, shearing off a utility pole and blacking out the area, authorities said. The car also crashed.
The people in the vehicles ran from police but were arrested nearby, the affidavits said.
A third car also sped from the club and crashed into another Southwest Mercer County Police cruiser driven by patrolman Robert David but managed to flee south on the road, which is also known as state Route 60.
Southwest police Sgt. Andrew Thomas fired “several rounds” at the car, trying to disable it, state police said.
It was later stopped by New Castle police, according to court papers.
Police from Sharon, Hermitage, the Mercer County Sheriff’s Department and state police assisted Southwest, and Greenville-West Salem Township police sent down police for backup, Smoot said.
Southwest and state police each filed charges against people involved in the shooting. State police are leading the investigation in what happened after Southwest police began shooting at the fleeing suspects, Smoot said.
The people arrested are all from New Castle and have roots in the Detroit area. Authorities believe they are part of a group of Detroit gang members who have been trying to take over the Shenango Valley drug trade the last couple years.
Big E’s was inspected by police, fire and code enforcement officials about 2 p.m. Sunday and authorities shuttered the club. Branch was at the inspection and will be formally notified of the violations by mail, Yerskey said.
“You hear different stories,” Branch said of what happened.
He bought the building, the former Serbian Club, in 2006 and Big E’s has been open about a year. There are “four or five” security guards, a girl at the door and kitchen staff at the place, which was open from 10 p.m. until “about 3:30 a.m.” Fridays and Saturdays, Branch said.
For a cover charge, people could come in, drink alcohol they brought, and enjoy food prepared by Big E’s staff, Branch said.
“It was just a place where people gathered, come and have good food,” Branch said. “I don’t know why people are saying otherwise. I’m not a troublemaker.”
Problems that happened at the club in the past often started somewhere else and came to a head there, Branch said.
“This is sad, man. I can’t even have a business (any) more,” he said.
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