DETROIT (AP) — Gunmen in a minivan opened fire on a group of teenagers waiting at a bus stop near a Detroit school on Tuesday, wounding seven, the authorities said.
Five of the teenagers had just left Cody Ninth Grade Academy, where they were taking summer classes, when they were shot.
The gunmen exited a vehicle and “asked for a person by name” before they “opened fire at the crowd,” said the Detroit Public Schools police chief, Roderick Grimes.
The police were looking for two men in a green minivan, said a spokesman, Rod Liggons, adding that officers were interviewing some of the victims in the hospital.
The wounded teenagers, four boys and three girls, are ages 14 to 17, Mr. Liggons said. Two of them are in critical condition, he said.
A gas station owner, Steve Hakim, said he had seen two people with T-shirts covering their heads run across his lot toward the bus stop. Then, Mr. Hakim said, he heard about 10 gunshots, saw a boy and a girl fall and called 911.
The police were reviewing video taken from the gas station’s security cameras, Mr. Hakim said.
A schools spokesman, Steve Wasko, said there was “nothing that we’re aware of at this time” linking the shootings with any fight or dispute at the school. Mr. Wasko said the shootings happened at 2:15 p.m., about 15 minutes after summer school students had been dismissed for the day.
Imam Abdullah El-Amin, an owner of Numan Funeral Home near the intersection where the shooting took place, said drug dealing, prostitution and “hopelessness” were common in the area.
“It’s terrible that these things are just laying there, festering, in society — time bombs waiting to happen,” said Mr. El-Amin, a candidate for the City Council.
Source : New York Times
}
Comments