LAWRENCE – Two teenage boys were seriously injured in a drive-by shooting early Monday on the southwest side of Lawrence, police say.
Police responded around 9:40 a.m. Monday to the 4600 block of North Hartman Drive. Officers on the edge of the street found two teenage boys, believed to be ages 15 and 16, had been shot when someone in a vehicle opened fire on them.
One boy was shot in the shoulder, while the other boy was shot in the leg. A third teenager with the group was not hurt. Police described their condition as serious but stable before they were taken to a hospital.
“A lot of times, because they do know who the assailants are, they don’t want to speak because they are scared or whatever the case may be,” said Lawrence police Capt. Tracey Cantrell. “We try to ensure that, you know, give us that information because they could potentially harm someone else, but you can’t force someone who doesn’t want to talk and, hopefully, they don’t do the vigilante justice that people are seeing today to want to handle that themselves.”
Investigators say whoever was driving the vehicle shots were fired from may have driven east.
Police are not talking about a lot of the evidence recovered, but say they recovered at least one shell casing, which turned over to the National Crime Gun Intelligence Center Initiative. The high school and the nearby Belzer Middle School and Harrison Hill Elementary were put on lockdown after the shooting report.
