Six people shot at a gathering in Lansing, shooter remains at large

Six people, including a 5-year-old and a 14-year-old, were shot and injured around 9:45 p.m. Thursday, April 23, at the intersection of Chestnut and Hillsdale streets, according to the Lansing Police Department.

The shooter fired into a crowd and walked away on foot. Police have not given an update since Friday morning, when Chief Robert Backus said police have a physical description but not an identification of the gunman.

Jordan Gulkis, a spokeswoman for the police, said Monday that there are no updates available.

Backus said Friday that the shooter was believed to have approached a gathering of about 30 to 40 people and walked away on foot. Police dog tracking was not successful. He said a motive was not yet known.

Community leaders Michael Lynn and Michael McKissic also spoke at the Friday news conference.

Lynn, who helps run or operate several organizations that work on preventing gun violence, said there was risk for retaliation and that shootings can spawn more shootings.

There were 911 calls for an incident at the same location prior to the April 23 mass shooting, and Backus said police had installed a mobile camera at the intersection before the shooting.

Backus had praised the city’s crime figures on April 22, at a meeting run by Lynn, saying that the city’s non-fatal and fatal shooting numbers had been cut in half since last year. Backus did caution at the time that it would not take much to change those numbers.

On Friday, Backus said that the prior evening’s shooting meets the standards for a mass shooting, with six victims.

One night, with one “stupid person with a handgun,” as Mayor Andy Schor described it, brought the city’s shooting rates back up.

 “We’re doing a ton of work and being extremely successful,” he said. “All the work we’re doing is not wiped out by one stupid person with a handgun.”

 Backus said the underlying progress being made by police and community groups remains strong and will continue. That includes groups like Lynn’s Empowered 360 and its upcoming Critical Incident CPR programs; McKissick’s Mikey23 Foundation, which teaches construction trades to youth; and the Advance Peace Lansing Peacemaker Foundation, which assisted during the immediate aftermath of the Thursday shooting. Backus said those groups and others have made real progress in Lansing, and it is important to continue those efforts.

McKissick said there are many organizations offering to help young people, and assisting those organizations can help give youth a purpose and hope.

 “We have to get that mentoring involvement during the summer,” he said. “Idle time is not great.”

Eric Pratl, the city’s assistant police chief, said summertime violence is anticipated.

 “There is a predictable increase in calls for service and violent crime in the summer, and we allocate resources to that,” he said.

The city will be working on engagement and enforcement this summer, Pratl said.

Police identified the victims — a 35-year-old female, a 31-year-old male, a 23-year-old female, a 21-year-old female, a 14-year-old female and a 5-year-old female — as being primarily shot in the lower part of their bodies, with the teenager being grazed in the ear and the 5-year-old being shot in the leg. All were reported in stable condition.