Grand Rapids Police are looking for both suspects and answers after multiple shootings occurred Friday night, and so far, the department says, it has neither.
According to a press release from the GRPD, just after 1 AM Saturday, officers responded to the 3000 block of Marshall Avenue on a report that someone had been shot. Upon arrival, officers witnessed a number of people running from a party, and located two adult female victims with gunshot wounds.
Then, just before 4 AM--officers on patrol heard multiple gunshots coming from the area of 6th Street Park, where three more victims, all male, had also been shot.
An hour later, another shooting---a male, in the area of Franklin Street and Eastern Avenue.
Miraculously, at the time of the Police Department's press release, everyone is alive—one remains in critical condition, another in serious condition, and the rest all sustained non-life threatening injuries.
In addition, police responded to five other reports of shootings in the area, but no victims have yet been reported, and no suspects have been arrested.
“With as many people as were involved, or nearby, all of these incidents, someone knows something. Someone saw something. Someone recorded something,” stated Grand Rapids Police Chief Eric Payne. “I’m reaching out to the parents, the grandparents, the ones in these young people’s lives who know what’s happening. Work with me to keep everyone in Grand Rapids safe.”
The weekend follows an unprecedented uptick in violence in the city of Grand Rapids since the pandemic began. In 2020, the number of homicides broke the record for most in a single year in city history.