Detroit police search for shooter who wounded 4 people, including 2 children, at playground
(CBS DETROIT) – Detroit police are trying to track down the person who opened fire at a playground on the city's west side Wednesday evening, wounding two women and two children.
Police say the shooting at Stein Playground on Faust Avenue near Chicago Street stemmed from a fight, but the two children had nothing to do with it.
The 3-year-old and 6-year-old were simply enjoying the beautiful weather when the gunfire broke out.
"It's just chaos. Like a war zone," one witness said. "I heard like four gunshots, came to the door, seen a lady picking up a baby—a young child — that got shot. I went on across the field, and there were two bodies laying down. One of them, you could tell, got shot in the face. So I took my shirt off and put it up on their head like a pillow and plugged the hole where they had been shot at."
Officers from the sixth precinct first learned about what happened because of a "shot-spotter" alert.
Detroit police say preliminary findings indicate they started with a confrontation between two women that quickly escalated.
"One of the females got the best of the other one. She called a male companion over who had a firearm in his backpack. He produced that firearm, firing four shots, striking the four victims," Detroit Police Chief James White said during a news conference late Wednesday night.
The two kids wounded are in stable condition; the two other victims are 18-year-old women. One of them is pregnant. Both are in serious condition.
"It's sad because the summer is just starting, so I'm praying that this is the eye opener for people to not only watch your kids, be out here with your kids, because so many people pull up to the parks and they're just sitting in their car, get out of the car, see about your kids, you know, walk to the park with your kids, see what they're doing out here because there's a lot of kids out here hanging with the wrong crowd," another witness said.
Detectives were back out at the Stein playground Thursday morning, trying to see if there was any additional evidence — they even called out one of their K9s to help them.
As of Thursday evening, police haven't released any surveillance video or images of the suspect, so we don't know if there's anything distinctive about the shooter, whether he walks a certain way or was wearing anything at the time of the shooting that makes him stand out in a crowd.
If you have any information regarding this shooting, call Detroit police or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-SPEAKUP.
