2 Teens Dead After Drive-By Shooting
DETROIT (WWJ) - A 19-year-old man and an 18-year-old woman have been killed during an apparent drive-by shooting on Detroit's northwest side.
Detroit police said a third young woman, either 18 or 19 years old, was hurt in the Thursday afternoon attack on the Southfield service drive at Cathedral, just north of Joy Road.
It happened at around 2:30 p.m., just before the afternoon rush began.
Police said the victims' car was heading south on the service drive when shots were fired from a second vehicle that pulled alongside them.
Witnesses who heard shots fired said one of the victims jumped out of the car trying to escape but ended up dying in the street. Another victim died in the car which crashed into the fence that separates the service drive from the Southfield Freeway.
The third victim, injured by flying glass, was taken to the hospital.
Detroit Police Inspector Dwane Blackmon said it appears the suspect and the victims knew each other and an earlier argument at a nearby home preceded the shooting later in the day.
Blackmon said it was a minor dispute.
"It seems to be that what we're lacking is the ability to resolve conflicts without shooting," he said. "And this particular incident, from what I'm being told, was something that could've been, I believe, handled without shots being fired at people inside vehicles."
Blackmon said it was lucky that no vehicles on the freeway were hit.
Talking to WWJ Newsradio 950's Sandra McNeil, one neighbor said she could see the tarp-covered body from her driveway. "It's scary because, if it had been a sunny day, my grandson and I would have been out here and I wouldn't have known what to do. I'd just been panicking because he's only five years old, and I don't need nothin' to happen to him ..."
The suspects, who police said used a high-powered rifle, were still at large early Thursday evening. Police said they were traveling in a black SUV.
The victims' names have not been released.
