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Albany Officials Call On Community: Help Stop Gun Violence

Albany Police are investigating a Clinton Street shooting that injured two people Sunday, including a 7-year-old boy.
Composite photo by Dave Lucas / Albany.Ny.Gov
Albany Police are investigating a Clinton Street shooting that injured two people Sunday, including a 7-year-old boy.

Albany's mayor and police chief are urging community cooperation after two more people, including a 7-year-old, were shot Sunday.
Albany Police are investigating a Clinton Street shooting that injured two people Sunday, including a 7-year-old boy. At about 3:20 p.m., police responded to reports of shots fired near Clinton Street and Second Avenue, where they found the boy with a gunshot wound to the knee. Police Chief Eric Hawkins says the child was transported to Albany Medical Center for non-life threatening injuries.

" That shooting yesterday was in a very vibrant neighborhood where families and children were all playing and it's it was very unsettling to see that. It was just unconscionable that we would have people who would disregard the lives of families. And in this case, an innocent 7-year-old boy, who sustained a gunshot wound to his leg after being struck by a stray bullet. You know that thankfully his injuries are not life-threatening and it looks like he's going to be OK."

Hawkins says a short time after the boy was shot, a 30-year-old man entered the emergency room at Albany Med with gunshot wounds to the leg and buttocks. Police say he was injured in the same shooting and treated for non-life threatening injuries.

"We've had several incidents this year in which individuals have been involved in some sort of conflict each other and they've used weapons as a means of resolving those conflicts and I've been consistently saying that our young people in this community must resolve conflicts in peaceful, non-violent ways. We're going to continue working with the members of the community in order to emphasize that."

With about 100 people shot in the city this year, Mayor Kathy Sheehan says authorities are working to identify, arrest and prosecute those responsible for the latest shooting.

"This city and every neighborhood in this city deserves to be safe. And to see the level of depraved indifference to the residents of our city, to our children, to our community, is something that's very disheartening. And we are working around the clock to being justice to the little boy who was shot and to our entire city. We deserve to be a place that is free of gun violence, plain and simple. And we need to do all that we can to get people who engage in this type of behavior off the streets."

Sheehan says she is sure that whatever led to the gunfire started long before Sunday afternoon, and she's calling on anyone who knows anything about the shooter to make an anonymous call to Crimestoppers or directly to the police. Again, Chief Hawkins:

"It's very challenging out there, challenging summer. Had a lot of things that have happened that we've had to deal with, but it's important for the community to know that the police department is willing to work with them in order to enhance the quality of life in our neighborhoods and to keep each other safe."

Dave Lucas is WAMC’s Capital Region Bureau Chief. Born and raised in Albany, he’s been involved in nearly every aspect of local radio since 1981. Before joining WAMC, Dave was a reporter and anchor at WGY in Schenectady. Prior to that he hosted talk shows on WYJB and WROW, including the 1999 series of overnight radio broadcasts tracking the JonBenet Ramsey murder case with a cast of callers and characters from all over the world via the internet. In 2012, Dave received a Communicator Award of Distinction for his WAMC news story "Fail: The NYS Flood Panel," which explores whether the damage from Hurricane Irene and Tropical Storm Lee could have been prevented or at least curbed. Dave began his radio career as a “morning personality” at WABY in Albany.
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