Around 2:15 a.m. Wednesday, a 17-year-old boy was shot in the back while he was a passenger in a car traveling on Washington Place, Detective Capt. Timothy Torell told Daily Voice.
“He is an extremely lucky young man and is expected to recover from his injuries,” Torell said.
City and Bergen County Prosecutor’s Office detectives went to the Holy Name Medical Center emergency room, where the victim had been driven, to talk with him and two companions who were in the car, the captain said.
They also impounded the vehicle to be examined for evidence, he said.
Evidence was also found at the shooting scene – as well as at another shooting that occurred a little over an hour earlier in the area of Warren and Fourth streets, Torell told Daily Voice.
This follows a pair of shootings last week – one in which someone fired a shot through a glass window of a home on Cross Street, nearly hitting a 16-year-old, around 12:15 a.m. Thursday.
A little over three hours earlier, police responded to a report of shots fired at the Martin Luther King housing complex on William Street, Torell said. No ballistic or other evidence was found, he said.
“We are actively investigating both shootings and attempting to determine if the residence on Cross Street was specifically targeted or if something unrelated to that home occurred outside and the bullet accidentally struck the home,” the captain said.
Detectives were trying to determine whether the incidents were linked – or if they had any connection to a Nov. 3 shooting of an 18-year-old on Palisade Place.
“We have a great deal of evidence to go through, which includes witness statements, ballistic evidence, other types of physical evidence and video footage from cameras in the area,” Torell said.
Meanwhile, Police Chief Lawrence Suffern stepped up patrols and asked that anyone with information that could help identify the shooters call Bergenfield-Englewood-Teaneck-Hackensack Crime Stoppers, which offers cash rewards for tips that significantly assist criminal investigations.
The Crimestoppers number: (844) 466-6789.
You can also call city detectives at (201) 568-4875.
Authorities announced in late October that they’d arrested 21 people out of Englewood on charges that ranged from attempted murder to weapons possession in an operation that targeted a rise in gun violence in the city.
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