FORT WAYNE, Ind. (WOWO): In the past 24 hours, Fort Wayne Police have investigated four different shootings and police believe they are all gang related.
On Monday a little after 5 p.m, there were two shootings just minutes apart. One person was shot in the 3500 block of Weisser Park Ave. The victim hospitalized in serious condition.
Another person was shot just after 5 p.m. Monday in the 4700 block of Holton Ave. That victim suffered non-life threatening injuries.
RELATED: Police investigating two southeast side shootings within minutes of each other
About 12 hours at 4:20 a.m. Tuesday, a 14-year-old Nicholaus D. Scroggins II was shot in the 5200 block of Lillie Street. When police arrived they found him lying in the street. He was rushed to a hospital where he died. He was the 15th homicide victim in Allen County this year.
RELATED: One dead in early morning shooting
Around 1:25 p.m. Tuesday, a police officer was in an unmarked police vehicle when three people approached the car. The officer noticed one person had a handgun. When the officer asked them to drop the gun, they ran away. The officer ran after them and fired his gun multiple times. The teenager was shot in an alley between Gay Street and Smith Street. He was hospitalized in serious but stable condition.
RELATED: Teenage boy shot by Fort Wayne police officer, police say
Fort Wayne Police Spokesman Michael Joyner believes the shootings are gang related.
“I think it’s fair to say that we have identified individuals that claim to be involved in gang activity and clearly a lot of our most recent criminal activity have been, we believe, perpetrated by members claiming to be in gangs,” Joyner said. “So, we are watching these individuals trying to curtail the violence and will do what we can as law enforcement.”
Joyner says there is only so much the police department can do.
“There are families out there that know what their children are involved in and who they are hanging out with,” Joyner said. “Unless the families want to step up and control their family members this is going to be a pretty difficult task for law enforcement alone to undertake.”
All four shootings were in southeast Fort Wayne.
