Duluth police investigate drive-by shooting

Duluth police are investigating an apparent drive-by shooting Monday in the Central Hillside neighborhood.

Police received a report of shots fired at 7:41 p.m. Monday on the first block of West Fifth Street, according to public information officer Jim Hansen. Witnesses said a dark four-door sedan came down First Avenue West, stopped at Fifth Street, and someone fired a number of shots and then continued down First Avenue.

No one was injured.

Officers on the scene found eight shell casings from two different small-caliber weapons, Hansen said. An unoccupied car on Fifth Street was hit by one round, but no other damage was found during more than an hour of searching. It wasn’t immediately clear who or what the target was, if any.

“As far as we can tell the only property that was hit was the car, and we’ve been up there a while,” Hansen said. “That’s not to say the daylight won’t bring a different ricochet in the morning, but for now that’s all we’ve got.”

The entire one-block area where the shooting occurred was cordoned off with crime scene tape while police cars blocked vehicle entry to the street. There were no people visible outside on the block and neighbors in the alley down from Fifth Street were left wondering what had happened.

It was about a block from where a 17-year-old girl was stabbed and beaten Saturday. An 18-year-old boy was also beaten with a baseball bat in the incident.

Police arrested another 17-year-old boy in that attack and have been seeking another suspect.

Police are following up on a number of leads in the shooting Monday, Hansen said, but did not have a suspect Monday night. Anyone with information on the either incident is asked to call 911.

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