Crime and Courts


	Reporter Karen Kasler

Thursday, February 4, 2010

Youngstown death row inmate executed

Mark Aaron Brown was executed Thursday for the 1994 murder of Isam Salman

by WKSU'S STATEHOUSE BUREAU CHIEF KAREN KASLER

Ohio has put to death a man who killed a convenience store owner and clerk after bragging he would copy a scene from a gang related movie. 37 year-old Mark Aaron Brown from Youngstown died by lethal injection at 10:20am for gunning down 32 year-old store owner Isam Salman in Youngstown in 1994. Brown had also been sentenced to life in prison for shooting a clerk in the store at the same time. Alan Johnson is a reporter from the Columbus Dispatch and has witnessed several executions, including Thursday's. He described it as "calm, fast and peaceful".

Alan Johnson describes Brown's execution

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Alan Johnson on the family of Isam Salman who witnessed the execution

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The state has scheduled one execution each month through September. There's always the possibility of court intervention in each of these cases. But if they're all carried out, Ohio would break an execution record.

Listener Comments:

I don't understand criminal killers. They're hard enough to kill someone, but they allow themselves to be taken alive, sit in some hell hole getting their backside worked over for a decade and then get killed themselves in a manner befitting an animal in a college Biology lab. You'd think they'd at least commit suicide to keep the state from having the satisfaction of executing them like Goring did. The state doesn't even execute with dignity anymore, it's electricity, nerve gas and drug cocktails, nothing dignified like a firing squad or the gallows. A person should at least be allowed to commit Seppuku to redeem themselves or at least prove they're a man. These people live, kill and die with no dignity, like human bacteria.

Posted by: Matt (Akron) on February 6, 2010 5:08PM

Only god can judge...who are we 2 determine if someone is a monster...we are all sinners remember that...jesus forgives and that's all that matters

Posted by: tana (ohio) on February 5, 2010 5:53PM

Execute them all, I say. One less monster among us. One less killer to pay for. He won't need breakfast, lunch and dinner TODAY, I'll tell ya that. He won't need medical care, dental care, vision care, free lawyers, mail service, hot showers, heat in the winter and A/C in the summer. He will never escape and murder more people. Dead killers are remarkably convenient, and incredibly safe, and the only safe killer is a DEAD killer. Good riddance! Great job, Ohio!

Posted by: Tom on February 5, 2010 2:45PM

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