FALL RIVER, MASS. (WHDH) - A 17-year-old male has been taken into custody in connection with a shooting in Fall River Thursday night that sent a 14-year-old boy to the hospital, police said.
Fall River Detective Sergeant Moses Pereira said officers first responded to the Maple Gardens housing complex around 8 p.m. Thursday after receiving a report of shots fired.
Pereira said the 14-year-old was found on scene with an apparent gunshot wound to the face. He was later taken to HASBRO Children’s Hospital with “potentially life-threatening injuries,” according to Pereira.
Pereira in an email late Thursday night described the investigation into this incident as “extremely fluid.” In an update Friday morning, Pereira said the 14-year-old remained at HASBRO Children’s Hospital where his condition had been upgraded to “stable.”
“He’s a good kid,” said Thomas Gendrolis, a concerned resident.
While an investigation was ongoing as of Friday, Pereira said “current information indicates that the victim was not targeted and this may have been unintentional.”
Investigators were spotted on scene in Fall River with crime tape in place for several hours Thursday night.
Speaking a day after the shooting, witness Lawrence Crump said he saw crews take the injured 14-year-old to an ambulance.
“I thought he was going to pass because of the way he looked when they took him out,” Crump said.
Initial reports said the boy had a gunshot wound to the eye. Crump, though, said the wound was a bit lower, indicating the boy got shot in a spot next to his nose.
One neighbor said the boy who was shot lives in a separate building a few doors down from the site where the shooting on Thursday happened. The neighbor said the boy was out walking his pit bull when he tied the dog up outside and went inside to visit a friend.
Another neighbor said the 17-year-old who was arrested turned himself in Friday night and lives with his mother at the apartment where this incident happened.
The 17-year-old has now been charged with assault and battery with a firearm, discharging a firearm within 500 feet of a building, carrying a loaded firearm without a license to carry, receiving stolen property and carrying a firearm without a license to carry, Pereira said.
While circumstances of the incident remained unclear on Friday, some residents were left shaking their heads at the violence.
“It’s not right,” Gendrolis said. “It’s not right, of course. A lot of leaders are not doing well keeping guns out of the hands of younger kids.”
7NEWS reached out to police and to prosecutors but did not hear back Friday on questions of whether the 17-year-old had appeared in court yet or whether he will be charged as a juvenile or an adult.
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