Gunfire on the 400 block of Cooper Street early Wednesday left a Lowertown man in critical condition and sent detectives canvassing a neighborhood where witnesses, so far, have been reluctant to come forward.
Bellwater police are investigating an overnight shooting that left a 32-year-old man critically wounded on the 400 block of Cooper Street in Lowertown, the department said Wednesday. Officers responding to multiple 911 calls shortly after 2 a.m. found the victim on the sidewalk with gunshot wounds to the chest and arm. He was taken to Bellwater General Health System’s downtown campus, where he was listed in critical condition.
Police have not released the victim’s name pending family notification. Lt. Omar Grady, a department spokesman, said detectives recovered shell casings at the scene and are reviewing footage from a city camera at the corner of Cooper Street and Ainsworth Avenue, as well as body-camera video from the first officers to arrive. No suspect description has been released.
“We know people heard this, and we believe people saw it,” Grady said. “Even a small detail — a vehicle, a direction of travel, an argument earlier in the evening — can move this case. Callers can stay anonymous.” The department’s tip line is staffed around the clock, he said, and detectives will be in the neighborhood through the week.
A street that has carried this weight before
The shooting is the fourth in Lowertown this year, according to department figures, after the neighborhood recorded seven for all of last year. Citywide, shootings are running slightly below last year’s pace, a statistic that offers little comfort on Cooper Street, where residents describe a stretch of blocks that empties out after dark.
Pierce, who has lived on the block for nineteen years, said she called 911 within a minute of hearing the shots. “Four of them, fast, then a car pulling away hard,” she said, standing on her porch Wednesday morning as an evidence technician worked across the street. “We’ve been asking for better lighting on this block for two years. You can’t see ten feet past the corner at night.”
The Rev. Josiah Trammell, pastor of Mount Calvary Baptist Church three blocks from the scene, spent Wednesday afternoon visiting homes along Cooper Street with two other clergy members. He said the neighborhood’s reluctance to talk to detectives is not indifference but fear and long memory. “People here have seen cases go nowhere and witnesses left exposed,” Trammell said. “Trust is built case by case. This is another test.”
The young man lying in that hospital bed is somebody’s son. Whoever pulled that trigger is also somebody’s son. Lowertown is tired of burying and burying and being told to be patient.
Rev. Josiah Trammell, pastor, Mount Calvary Baptist Church
Officials point to resources, and to their limits
Council Member Terrence Boudreaux, who represents Lowertown, said he spoke with Chief Roberta Simms on Wednesday morning and was told additional patrol coverage would be assigned to the area through the weekend. But he coupled the assurance with frustration, noting the department has acknowledged it is operating two dozen officers short of authorized strength. “Surge coverage after a shooting is triage,” Boudreaux said. “What this neighborhood needs is consistent presence before the shots, not after.”
Boudreaux said he will also renew a stalled request for pedestrian-scale lighting on Cooper Street and two adjacent blocks, an item that has appeared in two consecutive capital budgets without funding. “Residents flagged that corner over and over,” he said. “At some point the city has to stop filing those requests and start honoring them.”
Grady declined to discuss a motive, saying detectives have not ruled anything out. He confirmed the victim is a Lowertown resident and said investigators do not believe the shooting was random, a characterization he acknowledged cuts two ways. “It means we don’t think the broader public is in danger,” he said. “It also means somebody out there knows exactly what happened.”
At Bellwater General, a hospital spokeswoman confirmed the victim underwent surgery Wednesday and remained in the intensive care unit by evening. Hospital chaplains were with family members, she said. Neighbors on Cooper Street organized a meal train for the man’s mother by Wednesday night, and Trammell’s church scheduled a prayer vigil on the block for Friday evening.
The city’s acoustic gunshot-detection sensors, installed in parts of Lowertown two years ago after a run of unsolved shootings, registered the gunfire and helped dispatchers pinpoint the block before the first 911 call connected, Grady confirmed. The sensors have been contentious — civil-liberties groups question their accuracy and cost — but Grady said Wednesday’s response time, under four minutes from shots to officers on scene, “speaks for itself in this case.”
Trammell’s coalition of Lowertown clergy has asked the department for a meeting next week, seeking commitments that go beyond the current investigation: a named liaison officer for the neighborhood, quarterly public briefings on open violent-crime cases, and support for a street-outreach program modeled on violence-interruption work in larger cities. “We will help them solve this one,” Trammell said. “And we are asking them to help us make sure there isn’t a next one.”
Anyone with information is asked to call the Bellwater Police Department’s violent crimes unit or the anonymous tip line. Grady said the department will also accept video from doorbell and porch cameras along Cooper, Ainsworth and the surrounding blocks, and officers will canvass for such footage door to door through the rest of the week.