'It's gunshots everywhere:' Teen boy shot in Durham
DURHAM (WTVD) -- Residents on Durham's Wabash Street watched with concerned eyes as paramedics worked feverishly to stabilize a 15-year-old boy as they loaded him to a waiting ambulance.
They rushed the teen to the hospital after he was hit by the latest round of gunfire at the city's McDougald Terrace public housing complex. A distraught woman pleaded for answers from police.
For neighbors here, it's all disturbingly familiar.
"It's gunshots everywhere," said a 15-year-old girl who lives nearby.
She's the same age as the victim. She said he's her friend. She saw the whole thing.
"We was telling 'P.J.' to come on because they were shooting and 'P.J.' was about to run into the house with us. And next thing we know, he was on his knees and blood was everywhere," she said.
Durham Police initially called the incident a drive-by shooting. But some eyewitnesses say the gunmen were on foot. The shooters got away leaving behind multiple stray bullets in residents' cars.
"It went through the door, but it didn't go all the way through," said Tymiaka Fauik-Wilson as she pointed to the bullet hole in her green Lexus she left parked on Wabash.
"I'm kinda used to hearing the gunshots and stuff," Faulk-Wilson said. "It happens a lot."
It happens too much.
McDougald Terrace is undoubtedly near the top of newly sworn-in Durham Police Chief C.J. Davis' list of neighborhoods in need of a turnaround in crime numbers.
"I have taken time on my own to drive the streets of Durham without an escort in some of those areas that I've heard about," Davis said shortly after her swearing-in ceremony June 6. "Only so that I could see for myself as a citizen what the citizens are experiencing."
Chief Davis has an uphill battle in the long-term. But, in the short-term, DPD needs the public's help tracking down the gunmen from Friday's shooting. Call Durham Police if you know anything.
DPD has so far not released any information on the condition of the injured teenager.
