Deadly Incident at Sloane Ave. McDonalds

Stan Austin · Post by **Stan Austin** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 3:18 pm

I think the best thing is to wait for the police and prosecutor to complete their investigation to help sort out what seems, initially, to be unexplained violence.
I really have to admire the everyday courage of the cops who were confronting a potentially threatining person holding a gun.
And, the LPD wrapped it up without any further loss of life- real fast.

Suzie Dean · Post by **Suzie Dean** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 4:08 pm

Gunman Opens Fire Inside Lakewood McDonald's

Last Edited: Saturday, 07 Jul 2007, 3:00 PM EDT

Lakewood Police say a man entered the McDonald's restaurant on Sloane Avenue carrying a semi-automatic hand gun and shot a worker in the head killing him.

Lakewood Police have taken a man into custody after he allegedly shot and killed a worker at the McDonald's restaurant on Sloane Avenue.

Officials with the Lakewood Police Department tell Fox 8 News' Gary Stromberg, 26-year-old Robert Joslin of Lakewood was shot in the head and killed by 22-year-old Nathaniel Williams, Jr. of Cleveland shortly after 11:00 a.m.

According to police, Joslin was working the drive-thru at the McDonald's when Williams, Jr. entered the restaurant and began harassing him.

Police say the two had a on-going feud over a woman both had dated.

While Joslin was calling Lakewood Police to have Williams removed from the premises, Williams pulled out a semi-automatic hand gun and opened fire in the restaurant, killing Joslin.

Williams Jr. then ran from the building and held police at bay for a short time along the railroad tracks near the corner of Sloane Ave. and West Clifton Blvd. before he was apprehended.

This is what I have gotten from the Fox 8 website.

According to this it wasn't over a child but over a women.

Mark Crnolatas · Post by **Mark Crnolatas** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 5:57 pm

Agreed Stan..

Yet there are still people who think our police have it easy, and do not need more funds, equipment etc. The demands on our guys and girls in with LPD is only growing. Nothing will change that. The thing is, so many people forget they are also our neighbors and normal people doing an abnormally difficult job in many instances. We need to support them however we can.

Mark Allan Crnolatas

Ryan Salo · Post by **Ryan Salo** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 6:16 pm

I know the woman that Shawn was dating had a child that was around a year old and who obviously had a black father. I assume that is the cause of this problem.

Ryan Salo · Post by **Ryan Salo** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 7:33 pm

I spoke with Shawn's mother tonight and found out that they really need help with funeral expenses. I am going to ask First Federal of Lakewood to open an account for them on Monday, but if anyone knows a better way to do this please let me know. Your thoughts and prayers for the family would be greatly appreciated.

Suzanne Metelko · Post by **Suzanne Metelko** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:10 pm

Ryan, I spoke to Dave Shaw at FFL. He said to call him Monday morning and he'll facilitate the opening of this account.
Suzanne

Joe Ott · Post by **Joe Ott** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 9:39 pm

I uploaded some pics.

Warning:
There are some pictures of the deceased being removed. These pictures show blood. Some people may find this offensive. In addition, there are some pictures of some of the McDonalds workers standing together after being released. One is seen giving me the finger.

http://lakewoodobserver.com/photoblogs/ ... ing-070707

David Lay · Post by **David Lay** » Sat Jul 07, 2007 11:08 pm

Joe Ott wrote:I uploaded some pics.

Warning:
There are some pictures of the deceased being removed. These pictures show blood. Some people may find this offensive. In addition, there are some pictures of some of the McDonalds workers standing together after being released. One is seen giving me the finger.

http://lakewoodobserver.com/photoblogs/ ... ing-070707

Great photos, Joe.

Ivor Karabatkovic · Post by **Ivor Karabatkovic** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 12:41 am

My photos are up now. I was out and about so I missed a lot of the events today but I thought I'd share the photos that I did get.

http://lakewoodobserver.com/photoblogs/ ... y-7th-2007

Ivor Karabatkovic · Post by **Ivor Karabatkovic** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 1:47 am

it's an event like this that puts our lives into perspective. It's sad that events like this have to occur.

While snapping photos with Joe Ott today we talked about how the Mayor is always present at situations like this. I bet most people don't even realize, let alone appreciate, what the mayor does for a living especially when events like this occur in the community.

It started off with the parade on the 4th, and then it hit me today after covering the tragic shooting just how much work is put in by the residents and workers of the city of lakewood. It starts at the top and trickles down to the residents, and leads to things like helping hands with funeral expenses and so on.

I've doubted this city for a long time but I don't think I do anymore.. not after the teamwork that I witnessed and read about today.

Laura Klasa · Post by **Laura Klasa** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 8:44 am

I knew Shawn when he was in high school. He was a regular at the record store that I used to manage. He was extremely sweet and always smiling, just a really great kid. He was someone you were always glad to see. My heart goes out to his friends and family.

sharon kinsella · Post by **sharon kinsella** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 9:36 am

Please let us know when the fund is set up. My heart is broken for the family of this young man.

David Lay · Post by **David Lay** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 11:31 am

I went by this morning and took some photos of the aftermath. I will put them in a blog once I get more time to resize them, but in the meantime check them out here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/dlayphoto/ ... 716051432/

Ryan Salo · Post by **Ryan Salo** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 9:02 pm

Dave Sharosky wrote:The Lakewood Police did a great job reacting to the situation. The levy that everyone is debating and discussing is about helping the police become more proactive in stopping future disturbances.

Dave,

Can you please let me know how a police levy would prevent something like this from happening? The man that shot Shawn did not live in Lakewood and Shawn was a law abiding citizen.

Are you talking about buying technology similar to the Tom Cruise movie "Minority Report"?

Ivor Karabatkovic · Post by **Ivor Karabatkovic** » Sun Jul 08, 2007 9:18 pm

you can't protect yourself from crazy.

shootings like this and previous ones were random acts that were isolated incidents that no one thought would happen. regardless of how many police officers there are partoling the streets, it wouldn't have stopped or prevented this man from entering the mcdonalds.

it's isolated, unpredictable and rare. these aren't gang shootings or drive by's like in Cleveland where they are organized and predictable, this is a insane individual going over the edge.

Joe, Robert and I were talking about how I thought the deck will explode over the fact that if we had this police levy passed already, we'd be better off. That's far from the truth in this event. And even in the past isolated shootings and stand-offs, SWAT, LPD and EMS always handled it with care and minimized the collateral damage of the incident to just the house it occurred in.