FITCHBURG, MASS. (WHDH) - Police are searching for two suspects after a man was shot during a home invasion in Fitchburg on Tuesday morning, officials said.
Fitchburg police responded to the incident at a multi-family home on Chester Street around 11:50 a.m.
Authorities said the victim, a 29-year-old man, was targeted. He was taken by ambulance to a Worcester area hospital with serious but non-life-threatening injuries.
His roommate, 24-year-old Dustin DePauw, was also injured in the altercation. He was released from the hospital after undergoing treatment for a sprained ankle.
“I chased one guy out of the building,” DePauw said. “Then I grabbed a shovel and turned around to come upstairs, and I came around the corner and the dude had the gun right in my face.”
DePauw said he dropped the shovel and the man ran out of the home.
The suspects are described as a black man and a Hispanic man who could be traveling in a black Chevrolet pickup truck with Pennsylvania license plates.
Investigators could be seen scouring the neighborhood with K9 teams. Chester Street was roped off with crime scene tape.
“Any time there is this type of violence, it impacts the city in its entirety,” Fitchburg Police Chief Ernest Martineau said. “We have a lot of resources out there right now and our primary goal now is to make sure this area is safe.”
Fitchburg Public Schools said Reingold Elementary School was placed on lockdown as a result of the police activity in the area. Memorial Middle School went into an informal lockdown. The lockdown was lifted at both schools around 2 p.m.
“It is not like somebody burst into someone’s house and said ‘Oh my next target is this elementary school,” Rich Thayer, parent of a student at the school on lockdown said. “It had nothing to do with the school. It was just to be on the safe side.”
DePauw said he is happy he escaped serious injury but he is worried for his roommate.
No additional information was immediately available.
Searching for suspects after a Fitchburg home invasion…one person was shot #7news pic.twitter.com/Mqnlt7y8Qy
— Steve Cooper (@scooperon7) April 23, 2019
This a breaking news story; stay with 7News for updates online and on-air.
(Copyright (c) 2024 Sunbeam Television. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)