Brock Snyder’s friends and loved ones — even relative strangers living near him — say his shooting death Saturday doesn’t make sense.
They described him as a good guy, a hard-working father, a friend to all, and the first to step up when someone needed help.
When residents in the 700 block of Siegel Court, part of the Weiler Homes complex, would stay out late drinking together on the block, Mr. Snyder wouldn’t participate, neighbor Jamel Ward, 20, said. She’d only see him coming and going with his close friend Samantha Stephenson, 26, or his girlfriend Taryn Sexton, 34.
He never appeared to be involved in anything “extra,” she said.
“He ain’t never out here partying,” Ms. Ward said. “It don’t make sense. He kept to himself.”
Mr. Snyder, 27, was found shot in the front yard of a complex across from where he was staying about 4:17 a.m., Toledo police said. He was taken to Mercy Health St. Vincent Medical Center, where he later died.
An autopsy on Saturday determined he died of a gunshot wound to the head, said Dr. Jeffrey Hudson, a deputy Lucas County coroner. There was no evidence of close-range fire, he said.
The death has been ruled a homicide.
The shooting site on Saturday was littered with beer cans, trash, and a single folded blanket with the name and logo for St. Luke’s Hospital.
A suspect has not been named.
Alonna Jones, 31, said she heard a single gunshot and looked out of her window to see a man laying on his side in the yard across from hers. No one else was around, she said.
She wasn’t sure he’d been shot until Ms. Ward’s boyfriend went to check on the man and called 911.
“Everyday it’s a shooting down here,” Ms. Ward said. “Daylight, nighttime, a yard full of kids. They don’t care down here.”
But it still doesn’t explain why Mr. Snyder would be a target, said his longtime family friend, Ms. Stephenson said.
She said she’d never known him to have any enemies.
When he wasn’t working at Ohio Pickling and Processing to provide for his 4-year-old daughter, Faith, he was either spending time with her or his girlfriend, Ms. Sexton.
Ms. Sexton said they’d just learned a week ago that they were going to have a child together. They’d been picking out names for each sex.
“He helps everybody; he cares about everybody,” Ms. Sexton said. “That’s why I don’t understand how this happened. None of this is adding up”
She planned to hold a candlelight vigil for him at the complex Saturday night, weather permitting.
Mr. Snyder is the city’s 28th homicide this year.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call Toledo Crime Stoppers at 419-255-1111.
First Published August 1, 2020, 3:33 p.m.
