GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – Green Bay has had 16 reports of shots fired in the last six months, and police now believe there is a link in more than half of the cases.
No one has died in any of the shootings, but two people have been injured.
Green Bay Police say a mid-April shooting outside West High School was the first in a string of shootings involving the same groups of friends.
Here are the locations and dates of the incidents police believe to be connected:
April 11: 900 block Shawano Avenue
May 7: 500 block Elmore Street
June 25: Eastman Avenue/St. George Street
July 1: 800 block Elmore Street
July 9: 400 block S Quincy Street
August 14: Walnut Street/Webster Avenue (Two incidents)
August 22: Cherry Street
September 16: 1200 block S Broadway
Chief Andrew Smith tells Fox 11 it’s not a major gang war…..but it’s definitely getting police attention.
“It’s not the Crips and the Bloods and things like that. It’s groups of kids that hang out with each other and sometimes other people drift into this little group and they hang out, but there is some kind of ongoing dispute between these youngsters.”
Police say of the nine incidents they believe are connected, 27 people have been involved as either a suspect or victim.
Ages range between 16 and 47 years old, but Chief Smith says those involved are mostly teens and people in their 20s.
Although the Green Bay Police Dept. hasn’t identified the suspects, by FOX 11’s count, at least nine people have been arrested and charged, so far.
Smith says the reasons for the shootings range from boyfriend/girlfriend drama to minor drug disputes.
“It just escalates. It starts with words. It becomes fists and then somebody gets angry enough to get a gun and shoot at someone’s door of their house and there is a retaliatory shooting at someone’s car and it’s been back and forth like that.”
A private meeting of community leaders and mentors was held at the police department last week to focus on ways of preventing more shootings.
It was talked about publicly for the first time Thursday night at the police department’s monthly community meeting at Divine Temple Church.
“What he as a chief of police is trying is to negotiate and work with the people instead of going in with a SWAT team and try to do all that, but you want to make friends with the people so they can know who they are,” said Rev. L.C. Green of Divine Temple Church.
Green tells FOX 11 he’d like to see more families at his church’s monthly meetings with police.
“If we all work together, we don’t have to have this.”
Chief Smith agrees. He says in addition to the community efforts, officers have been redeployed and strategies are critiqued daily to try and prevent any more shootings.
To compare the 16 reports of shots fired from April to September this year, the police department says there were no reports of shots fired during the same stretch two years ago.
