Six teenagers were wounded in a drive-by shooting at a park in Aurora, Colo., on Monday afternoon that resulted in a nearby high school being placed under a lockdown, the authorities said.
The police described the injuries to the victims, who they said ranged in age from 14 to 18, as not life-threatening. One of the victims was undergoing emergency surgery, according to Vanessa Wilson, Aurora’s police chief, who said during a news conference on Monday afternoon that a school resource police officer most likely saved the person’s life by applying a tourniquet.
The Aurora Police Department said that the shooting occurred at 12:45 p.m. at Nome Park near Central High School, where all six of the victims are students. The police said they had secured the school’s perimeter.
The attackers fled after the shooting, according to the police, who did not say what had prompted the gunfire. Chief Wilson said that it was too early to tell whether the shooting was gang-related.
“When I got the call, my heart dropped,” Chief Wilson said. “I think enough is enough. This is a public health crisis.”
Chief Wilson urged residents of the neighborhood to share security camera footage from the time of the shooting. Some of the attackers may have been on foot, in addition to those in cars that had raised suspicions among residents, according to the chief.
“I need us all to be outraged by what happened here today,” Chief Wilson said earlier in the news conference.
The authorities did not say what types of guns were involved in the shooting or how many rounds had been fired by the attackers.
“I’m hoping that there’s kids out there that know why this happened,” Chief Wilson said.
The television station FOX 31 reported that there had been gang-related violence in Nome Park recently.
Before Monday’s shooting, three aggravated assaults occurred at the park this year, including one that was gun-related, according to the station. Three other gun-related aggravated assaults occurred across the street, FOX 31 reported.
In 2019, a teenager was charged with attempted first-degree murder in connection with a gang-related shooting at the park, according to the station.
Colorado has been the scene of several mass shootings in recent years that have drawn widespread attention, including one in 2012 at a movie theater in Aurora, where a gunman killed 12 people and wounded 58 at a midnight screening of a Batman film.
