LYNN — Two women were transported to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries Tuesday night after a person or group of people fired multiple rounds at their car.
Three women were driving down Autumn Street at approximately 11:40 p.m. when the shooter or shooters fired multiple shots at them, hitting one Lynn woman in the hand and grazing another Lynn woman’s back, said Lt. Michael Kmiec of the Lynn Police Department.
The women drove away and parked the car on Memorial Park Avenue. The victims, Kmiec said, will likely be okay.
The women were shot only days after Presidents Day weekend, when Lynn Police recovered two illegal handguns in connection to separate incidents. Additionally, less than two weeks ago, a 16-year-old Wendy’s employee was shot through the drive-thru window at 116 Boston St.
Lynn Police Chief Christopher Reddy said in an interview Wednesday evening that he did not consider the subsequent shootings and illegal gun recoveries an “uptick,” but an ongoing issue in the community.
“This is an ongoing issue in our community,” Reddy said. “The prevalence of illegal guns, the gun violence that results from them is a significant concern and significant priority of the police department.”
Reddy said that the problems of illegal gun possession and acts of gun violence are not confined just to Lynn, with other communities in the area seeing similar incidents lately. He added that Lynn Police have been actively working with state and federal law enforcement officers to try to curb the city’s gun violence.
“This is not something that we are suddenly responding to. We’re aware of the increase of weapons and we’ve been concerned about the fact that gun violence in our community, always but certainly in the past year with the number of weapons we’ve seized and these incidents, have a serious impact” Reddy said. “We’re doing everything we can to try to reduce the presence of illegal guns in our community.”
No arrests have been made yet in connection with Tuesday night’s shooting. The incident remains part of an active and ongoing investigation.
