Three injured in Gadsden Shootings

Gadsden police are investigating a late Wednesday that sent three people to local hospitals with gunshot wounds.

A Gadsden officer was gassing up his car at North Third Street and West Meighan Boulevard about 11:12 p.m. when he heard several gunshots. By the time other officers were routed in the direction the shots came from, dispatchers had received several calls about gunshot victims.

Arriving on the scene on Joseph T. Robinson Boulevard, officers found a 31-year-old Gadsden man sitting on the stairs next to his sister’s house holding a blood-soaked towel around his right hand. He also had cuts and blood on his head.

According to two separate police reports from two of the shooting victims, the 31-year-old and a 45-year-old friend were sitting in a car, having gone to visit the 31-year-old’s sister, when a man approached with a rifle that looked like an AK-47 and began firing at the two men. The 31-year-old told police he put up his hand to defend himself and was shot in the hand. He got out of the vehicle and ran toward his sister’s house. The shooter continued to fire at him, missing with several shots.

The 45-year-old man told police the suspect walked up to the driver’s side of the car with the weapon. The man rolled out of the vehicle, but not before being shot three times — in the right hand, the right forearm and the left thigh.

He crawled behind the car, he told police, and ran down Fourth Street about the time officers arrived on the scene.

According to the police report, two men were taken to one area hospital and a third was taken to another hospital. The two men in the vehicle together were taken to separate hospitals. Preliminary investigation led officers to suspect one of the injured men shot the other two.

Neither of the incident reports detailed injuries to the third man who apparently was shot during the confrontation. Other reports stated he is a 34-year-old Gadsden man.

The vehicle at the scene was riddled with bullet holes on the driver’s side, with the driver’s side window, back window and passenger windows broken. Officers recovered a bullet casing that appeared to be from a rifle, and a shell casing that appeared to be from a 9mm pistol.

Gadsden detectives continue to investigate the case.