Six men shot in four Durham drive-by shootings Monday afternoon and night, police say

Six people were shot in four drive-by shootings Monday, as police and city leaders confront continued gun violence in Durham.

Unlike shootings that killed a 9-year-old boy and and an 18-year-old young man last week, Monday’s injuries don’t appear to be life threatening, police said.

The reported shootings include:

▪ At 4:45 p.m. two men standing on the corner of Shirley and Crest streets were shot in a drive-by shooting that involved a white Mazda.

▪ At 7:40 p.m. a man was shot while walking in the parking lot of an apartment complex on the 3600 block of Danube Lane when two or three people in a four-door blue hatchback drove by and began shooting.

▪ Around 9 p.m. two men were shot while standing near the 200 block of West Enterprise Street when a dark sedan drove by and two or three people in the vehicle began shooting.

▪ Around 11:20 p.m. a man was shot in his right arm by occupants of a black vehicle while he was riding a bicycle near Nantucket Avenue and Lynn Road.

More officers rejected

The shootings came as city leaders are debating how to respond to gun violence, a conversation elevated by the drive-by killing of 9-year-old Z’yon Person.

Z’yon was shot in the head near Duke and Leon streets as his aunt drove him, his sister and three cousins to get snow cones on Aug. 18. The children, one of them shot in the arm, were ages 3 to 11.

The next day Kylik Burnette, 18, was found shot to death in the 2900 block of Chapel Hill Road. Police made an arrest in that case the following day.

As of Aug. 17, there had been 24 homicides in Durham this year, according to police statistics.

The City Council, in two split votes last spring rejected a proposal from Police Chief C.J. Davis for 18 more officers, and a compromise proposed by Mayor Steve Schewel for nine more officers.

The council has also rejected council member Mark-Anthony Middleton’s repeated request that the city purchase a surveillance system that tracks gunfire by sound. Middleton has said the city should declare an emergency and come up with a concrete plan to fight gun violence.

After last week’s shootings, city, county, city and federal officials pledged Thursday to work together to crack down on gun violence, The News & Observed reported. They said there would be more collaboration at the local level and more support from federal agencies including the FBI.

From 2016 to 2018, there were 2,051 reported shootings and 662 people shot in Durham, according to a recent report.

In an interview on Wednesday, Davis told The News & Observer there were about 50 shooting incidents over the past three weeks.

The shooting that killed Z’yon doesn’t appear to be linked to those shootings, she said.

But many of the roughly 50 shootings reflect tensions among roughly three gangs in the city, Davis said.

The police department is putting an emphasis on gang intelligence and having homicide investigators work with that unit to help connect crimes in different locations.

“We are trying to peel the onion back and get these key players, and some of them end up getting injured in this battling back and forth, “ Davis said. “Unfortunately, because of their gang ties, they don’t want to cooperate. They are victim and a suspect all at the same time.”

This story was originally published August 27, 2019 at 7:34 AM with the headline "Six men shot in four Durham drive-by shootings Monday afternoon and night, police say."