Falls police probe several shooting incidents
Jun. 12—NIAGARA FALLS — Police are heading into what is predicted to be a hot, early summer weekend, with violence continuing to flare on the city's streets.
Patrols officers spent the early hours of Friday morning responding to what has become an increasingly common series of calls for "shots fired" or "shots heard."
Officers headed to the 500 block of 15th Street, at 1:20 a.m. Friday for reports of a woman "laying on stairs, potentially injured." As officers rushed to the scene, they were told that police dispatchers had just received calls of "shots fired" in the same area.
The arriving officers encountered two victims and said they observed a Volvo sedan "with what appeared to be one bullet hole near the roof of the driver's side windshield."
One victim, the driver of the Volvo, told police that they had turned off of Walnut Avenue, on to 15th Street, when a grey or silver four-door sedan "cut them off and began to accelerate toward Ferry Avenue. "A flurry of gunshots then erupted from the sedan, with one of the bullets striking the victim's car.
The victim said they stopped their car in the middle of the street and "ducked down" as shattered glass fell on them. Because of the gunfire, neither the driver nor a passenger were able to provide police with a good description of the people in the sedan.
Other witnesses were described by police as "extremely uncooperative."
A car matching the description of the sedan was located a short time later in the 400 block of 74th Street. Officers also recovered two spent shell casings on 15th Street
Less than an hour later, as officers were still on the scene of the first shooting, a driver in an SUV approached them and said that their vehicle has "just been shot at" on Ferry Avenue.
Officers said the rear window of the SUV was shattered, but that neither the driver nor a passenger in the vehicle had been injured.
The driver told police that while approaching Niagara Street, another vehicle "pulled up on him" and "began following him at a close distance." The driver said that he tried to elude the other vehicle by driving aggressively, but that the other driver continued to follow him.
The two vehicles then weaved their way through streets in the area around the Seneca Niagara Casino and as the victim drove in the area of Ferry Avenue and Fourth Street, he noticed "a green laser shining inside of his vehicle." The driver said he then heard a gunshot and his rear window shattered.
After the gunshot, the driver said he spotted the lights of police vehicles at the earlier shooting scene and he began to speed toward them. The victim said the car that was following him pulled off as he headed toward police.
The suspect vehicle was described as a dark-colored sedan with dark window tints. Police said they found "a significant amount of vehicle glass and one spent 9 mm shell casing" in the vicinity of Fourth Street and Ferry Avenue.
