LANSING, Mich. — Four people were shot in Lansing over the holiday weekend: two on Sunday and two on Monday.
No one has been arrested, according to Lansing police.
Lansing police were called to the 2900 block of Mersey Lane on the south side of Lansing at 3 a.m. Sunday on a report of a shooting.
The victim, a 20-year-old man, was already at the hospital with a gunshot wound near his hip when police arrived. The wound was not life-threatening.
Police say the victim did not cooperate in providing information, though police said several items of evidence were discovered.
At around 5 p.m. the same day, a 16-year-old girl was shot in the back inside of a residence on the 3600 block of Karen Street on the city's south side, police said.
The girl was taken to a local hospital and listed in critical condition. She is now stable and expected to survive.
Police suspect the weapon was handgun and the shooting was accidental.
On Monday just before 4 a.m., shots were fired between two vehicles near Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard and St. Joseph Street, police said. One of the cars crashed near Ottawa Street after the victim, a 19-year-old man, was shot in the head. The other vehicle fled the scene.
The victim was taken to the hospital with a critical injury. There was a woman in the car who wasn't injured as well as a firearm.
A 20-year-old man was shot in the leg in the 3800 block of Kendalwood Drive on the south side of Lansing after 2 p.m. Monday, police said. The injury wasn't life-threatening, and the victim was taken to a hospital.
Lansing police say the victim was outside when he was approached by another man. Words were exchanged before the suspect shot the victim in the leg and ran to a dark gray Chevy Cruze to flee.
"Whether illegal or accidental shootings, there are certainly many guns out there," Mayor Andy Schor said. "Our police officers and our Violent Crimes Initiative have done a great job of getting guns off the street but there are many, many guns out there and that's certainly been a challenge for our city and all other cities."
Lansing Interim Police Chief Ellery Sosebee said shootings have been up in the city over the past year and a half, partly because there haven't been as many police officers monitoring city neighborhoods due to the pandemic.
"It's a very strong reason that it is, because we don't have the visibility in our neighborhoods and we don't have that visual deterrent. We don't have that communication open, we don't have the interaction between our neighborhoods and our youth, and I think it's a very big reason why we are having this issue now," Sosebee said.
Schor said the department is working to fill 10 vacancies and will then hire five more officers. Sosebee can't say precisely when that will be.
In addition, Sosebee said, the department is, "working on our public camera infrastructure throughout the city, our public camera system. So, we can view more areas and data-collect more, evidence-collect more."
As far as how many cameras or where they will go, Sosebee isn't sure.
Sosebee said detectives are, "really putting in the hours."
"We're trying to do our best to bring some closure to these families and just to get some answers as to why these things are happening," he said, "and it's not just the ones that happened this weekend. It's the recent ones in the last couple weeks that happened, as well. This is a national trend that's everywhere right now."
Schor said the city's gun violence task force is "working through not only enforcement but prevention ideas. So, we'll continue to put out ideas on prevention. You'll see some announcements coming pretty soon. We continue to work with a variety of outside groups. But prevention takes time and helping out with socio-economic dynamics takes time."
Lansing Police Department asks anyone with information on any of the above cases to call the department at (517) 483-4600, call Detective Sergeant Rick Thomas at (517) 483-6847, call Crime Stoppers (517) 483-7867 or direct message the Lansing Police Department Facebook page.
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