One of the six victims in Sunday's early-morning shooting near the Illinois State University campus is out of the hospital, according to Normal Police, while the five others remain in stable condition.
Department spokesman Brad Park said the one released is an 18-year-old male from Bloomington. Each of the victims is between the ages of 17 and 19. Four of the victims were from Bloomington-Normal. The other two were from Peoria and Chicago.
Four of the six victims injured in the shooting in the 700 block of Franklin Avenue were taken to Bloomington-Normal hospitals by private transport. Two of the victims were taken by Normal Fire Department crews.
Police said Wednesday they do not yet have suspect information—or know how many weapons were involved. Park said investigators recovered shell casings from the scene and hope that will help them determine how many weapons were used in the shooting, but police are not disclosing how many shell casings were recovered.
He said investigators have been reviewing camera footage submitted by nearby residents and business owners and are examining other evidence collected at the scene and interviewing witnesses.
Park said the public’s input has not produced any breakthroughs but has still helped police narrow their focus.
“Evidence even if it doesn’t show anything is useful evidence,” he said.
Large crowd
Park said police came upon a crowd of 30-40 people at the scene, but the crowd was likely larger before police arrived. He said police are still trying to determine what role if any the large outdoor party or alcohol may have played in the shooting.
Park added police are investigating the case as an attempted murder.
“We are taking it very seriously. We will jump through all the hoops that we need to,” Park said.
Police indicated early Sunday morning they believed the shooting was an isolated incident—even though no suspects or weapons had been identified—because a large presence of police officers secured the scene.
“We don’t believe it was people driving around randomly and shooting at large groups of people. We still have to correlate that relationship, if there was one, between victims and suspects. That’s something we are looking into,” Park said.
Early uncertainty
Park said it took an estimated 20-30 minutes for officers to determine on how many shooting victims were involved, because four of the victims had already been taken to the hospital by private vehicles.
Park said officers nearby responding to another call heard the gunshots, but were unable to pinpoint the location until 911 calls directed them to the scene. He said Normal Police shared what information it had confirmed with the other law enforcement agencies involved, which included Illinois State University Police, Bloomington Police, the McLean County Sheriff’s Office and Illinois State Police.
That initial uncertainty over the location and number of victims is why ISU Police Chief Aaron Woodruff said his department did not issue a campus-wide security alert.
Park said he could not speak for ISU’s decision, but said police believed any potential threat had lapsed once officers had arrived.
“At that point I think we understood that the suspects were away from the scene. There was no immediate threat after that first 20-30 minutes,” Park said. “[With] the number of officers that were on scene, we canvassed that entire area and felt confident that there was no other threat to the public.”
Cameras
Bloomington Police has installed public safety cameras at various locations throughout the city to help with identifying suspects. He said Normal PD has no immediate plans for employing similar technology.
“It is something we can definitely look at if we have a hot spot that we need to focus on,” he said.
Last year, NPD received a grant for additional automatic license plate reader [ALPR] cameras to combat retail theft, bringing the total to 57. Normal Police Chief Steve Petrilli said in a recent interview the department also has access to drones through a new agreement with Axon approved in October.
Drones would be used to assess situations in real-time, such as during traffic accidents that are difficult to reach with squad cars.
After two shootings in the town over the last six weeks, the previous one on Feb. 14, Park said he believes the town is still safe, noting gun violence overall has trended down over the last five years. That trend is also reflected in national data.
“We understand there’s a concern when anything of this nature takes place. What we want to say is the Bloomington-Normal area in general is a very safe community. We are proud of that,” Park said.
Normal Police ask anyone who may have additional information on the incident to call the department at 309-454-9535.
