CLEVELAND — People who live and work in Cleveland’s Old Brooklyn neighborhood have some tough questions for police about a barber shop shooting last October that hurt five people.
There’s also never-seen-before surveillance video of the shooting and the gunmen who got away.
It’s been more than three months since the shooting at IFIXUGLY on State Road and Saratoga Avenue and no arrests in the case.
"Where have the shooters gone? These are people that shot, not because they got a bad haircut, but because there's a problem going on,” Carl Schanz said.
Schanz owns the building across the street and captured the shooting on his surveillance system.
Police told News 5 Investigators the Second District Major Crimes Unit is continuing its investigation and they do have some good leads.
Schanz wants answers and so do people who live near the shop.
In the video, you see two gunmen hop out of a red car, open the door to IFIXUGLY on State Road in the middle of the day and fire repeatedly before taking off.
"They have the guts to show up, push open the door and shoot multiple times in a business and who are they, where have they gone?” Schanz said.
Schanz put up surveillance, he says, for a reason.
"Prior to the shooting, we had residents that moved out from upstairs in the apartments because of the activity going on in that business—because of the loud music, motorcycles, people coming and going at all hours,” Schanz said.
But since the shooting last October, Schanz says it’s been quiet.
"This is now a business that is in transition, and it's gone from party place to very possibly the business that it should be,” Schanz said.
IFIXUGLY owner, Tim Gillespie, says the October shooting had nothing to do with his shop, rather three walk-ins.
"Them dudes had something going on, and them dudes pulled up and they did what they did,” Gillespie said.
Schanz’ video appears to show return fire.
"The police came and got up in the DVR. They took what they took. I don't know if anybody returned fire, I know I didn't return fire,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie says a shooting four months earlier, when a bullet hit a barber chair, wasn’t connected either.
"We cut hair here, it's not a club— not partying. I spoke to the councilman, and I said, 'look we're not a nuisance—we cut hair, there's a lot of people in and out of here and the parking sucks,'” Gillespie said.
He’s since added more security.
"In order to get in and out of the shop you got to get buzzed in and out,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie opened up his shop four years ago and says he's now relocating to Middleburg Heights; the shooting is a factor.
"Kind of got a backlash on the business from what happened in here. It's an unfortunate event. You can't control people, you know what I'm saying, people are going to being doing what people do. The barber shop ain't the only shooting that happened in a public place,” Gillespie said.
Gillespie says he’s heard nothing from police since day one. Schanz wants police to follow up, not only on the October shooting, but whether the gunmen and getaway driver have done anything else since.
"Frustrating and just sets up a level of curiosity of why, why you have a community like this, a business like that, an event of five people being shot and nothing else has happened out of it,” Schanz said.
Gillespie says some of his clients haven’t returned for reasons that include the shooting. Again, no arrests have been made in this case and police say at this time, no charges have been filed against anyone in the shop at the time of the shooting.
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 216-25-CRIME.
Watch live and local news any time:
Download the News 5 Cleveland app now for more stories from us, plus alerts on major news, the latest weather forecast, traffic information and much more. Download now on your Apple device here, and your Android device here.
You can also catch News 5 Cleveland on Roku, Apple TV, Amazon Fire TV, YouTube TV, DIRECTV NOW, Hulu Live and more. We're also on Amazon Alexa devices. Learn more about our streaming options here.
