A 7-year-old boy was wounded Tuesday afternoon in a drive-by shooting in Little Rock, according to a police spokesman.
Police were dispatched about 4 p.m. to 1123 Washington St. for a report of a shooting in progress, according to police spokesman Lt. Steve McClanahan.
Officers arrived and found a 7-year-old boy suffering from a gunshot wound in the arm, McClanahan said. The child did not have life-threatening injuries, he said, and was taken by ambulance to Arkansas Children's Hospital for treatment. Nobody else was reported wounded.
Investigators do not believe that the child, whom police did not identify, was targeted in the shooting, McClanahan said. Instead, the target was a group of people sitting on top of a small hill, near Washington Street, located between West 12th and West 11th streets, he said. McClanahan said a group of children was outside when the shots were fired.
Click here for larger versions
Photos by Brandon Riddle, Kally Patz and Ryan Tarinelli
Photos by Brandon Riddle, Kally Patz and Ryan Tarinelli
Crime-scene tape ran along the home at 1123 Washington St. Bright yellow evidence markers lay in the grass near the home as cars in rush-hour commute rolled by the scene.
As of Tuesday afternoon, no suspects had been arrested in the shooting.
Police were looking for an SUV or a vehicle of similar type that was seen fleeing the crime scene, McClanahan said. He said the shooter was described as a black male who was hanging outside the vehicle firing shots.
The vehicle was last seen in the area of West 23rd and Peyton streets, less than a mile from the crime scene, he said.
"These shootings are occurring too frequently in this area," McClanahan said at the scene. "We aware of that as a Police Department, we are going to try to look at the logistics and adjust our manpower accordingly."
On Saturday, two people were wounded in a drive-by shooting in the area of the 4500 block on Montclair Road, about a half-mile from Tuesday's shooting scene. The shooting sent a 19-year-old woman and a 21-year-old man to Little Rock hospitals for treatment.
McClanahan said Tuesday afternoon that it was too early to know whether the shooting on Washington Street is connected to Saturday's drive-by shooting.
Across the street from Tuesday's crime scene, Mary's Magic Curl at 4415 W. 12th St. was hit with gunfire last week, according to a police report. The business owner was not hit, but she told police she heard three to five shots before her business was hit, the report said.
Katz Morrison, a relative of the 7-year-old boy shot Tuesday, said the community is not doing enough to stop the violence.
"Here in Little Rock there been so much of that going on -- drive-bys and kids getting shot," Morrison said.
He said the 7-year-old boy was innocent and shot for no reason at all. Now his family is praying for his recovery.
It's not the first time Morrison has felt the impact of violence in Little Rock. His 23-year-old son, Stephen Morrison, was killed in Little Rock in 2013. And when he heard word of Tuesday's shooting, it brought him back to coping with his own son's death.
"It's a feeling that's unimaginable," he said.
McClanahan urged people with information on the case to contact police and said detectives often need community cooperation to solve crimes.
Metro on 06/28/2017