LOUISVILLE, Ky. — A teenage boy was killed and another wounded in a drive-by shooting Wednesday morning at a bus stop in Louisville, according to police.
The two were sent to the hospital, while a girl was injured by “unknown means” and declined medical treatment. One of the teens was later pronounced dead, Louisville Metro Police Major Shannon Lauder confirmed. The other teen is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
Louisville Metro Police confirmed in a tweet it was a drive-by shooting that was reported around 6:30 a.m. Wednesday in the Russell neighborhood, just west of downtown. Other children were present at the bus stop but were not injured. It is unclear if adults were at the scene.
A suspect has not been identified.
“The biggest thing we’re taking away from this right now is that we have kids that couldn’t even wait at a bus stop this morning without getting shot, and that is horrifying and devastating, and we’re going to throw all of our resources into finding who did this,” Lauder said.
Renee Murphy, a spokesperson for Jefferson County Public Schools, confirmed that the bus was headed for Eastern High School. She said support resources will be available at the school.
5,100 kids shots, 1,300 killed: Gun violence affecting children erupts during COVID-19
Lauder said her own kids were waiting at the bus stop in their neighborhood as she was on the way to the scene in Russell.
“I just can’t imagine how the parents who had kids at this bus stop this morning feel,” she said.
This year has seen a record-breaking spike in violent crime in Louisville. The city reached 100 homicides in June, two months earlier than in 2020. Police have now investigated 113 homicides this year.
On a national level, last year was the deadliest year for gun violence in the U.S. in at least two decades and data for 2021 shows it is getting worse, according to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit data collection and research group that tracks gun violence.
In 2020, more than 5,100 kids under 18 were shot — about 1,000 more than at any point since at least 2014, when the archive launched — and more than 1,300 died. The numbers of kids shot and killed both increased by more than a third from the previous year.
As of early September, firearm fatalities were up 13%, and more children and teens had been shot than at the same time last year, according to the archive.
In Chicago on Tuesday, a 15-year-old boy was fatally shot two blocks from his high school, just after school let out.
According to police, a black vehicle approached Jamari Williams, and someone inside opened fire. He was shot in the chest and taken to a hospital, where he died. No one was in custody, police said.
Contributing: Grace Hauck and Ryan Miller, USA TODAY. Reach Louisville Courier Journal reporter Billy Kobin on Twitter: @Billy_Kobin.
