Teen found shot at park

By ERIN BLASKO, Tribune Staff Reporter

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Teen shot on Walnut Street

While investigating a shooting on Walnut Street, officers removed two people from a house on Pulaski Street in South Bend on Monday, October 27, 2008. (WSBT photo)

By WSBT News1

Story Created: Oct 27, 2008 at 9:53 PM EST

Story Updated: Oct 27, 2008 at 9:59 PM EST

SOUTH BEND — A 17-year-old boy is in critical condition and six people are in custody following a shooting Monday afternoon at Pulaski Park, police said.

About 4:57 p.m., South Bend police were dispatched to the park, near the corner of South Walnut and Huron streets, where they found a 17-year-old boy with a gunshot wound to the back.

The boy was rushed to the hospital and into surgery, South Bend police spokesman Capt. Phil Trent said. He was in critical condition Monday night.

A man who lives near the park said that, just before the shooting, he saw two people in the park’s parking lot arguing with several people inside a Chevrolet Trailblazer. He said he heard gunfire and ran inside his home.

The man asked not to be identified.

Trent said witnesses described to police the suspect vehicle and its direction of travel. A vehicle matching that description was soon found three streets west, he said, in the 400 block of South Pulaski Street, across from a two-story home.

Adam Wojciechowski, who lives at the home, said just after 5 p.m. he was hanging out with several friends when four men he knows as his neighbors knocked on the back door. He said the men told him they needed to "kick it for a little bit" and he let them inside.

Wojciechowski said the men did not display any weapons, but he knew them to own and carry handguns.

A few minutes later, he said, police knocked on the front door and told him and his girlfriend, who was with him, that they needed to leave the home.

"They (the police) wouldn’t tell me anything," Wojciechowski said as he stood in the cold near the corner of West Western Avenue and Pulaski in just shorts, a T-shirt and slippers.

Police then surrounded the home, blocking off Pulaski from Huron to Western and asking neighbors to stay inside their homes.

While waiting for South Bend SWAT to arrive, several officers kept their weapons trained on the home.

Eventually, one-by-one and without incident, all five people inside the house exited. Along with Wojciechowski, they were taken into custody for questioning.

Prior to police entering the home to search for evidence, SWAT swept the premises, finding no other suspects inside, Trent said. Police were still searching the home later Monday night.

The names and ages of those detained are not known, nor is the name of the victim.

Hazel Bokon, who lives in the 400 block of Pulaski, said her mother, who lives across the street, told her that earlier in the day several people got into a fight in a nearby alley, and that one of them pulled a gun.

Trent was unaware of the incident, and could not say if it was related to the shooting.

He said the shooting did not appear to be connected to any of the five shootings that occurred Sunday in South Bend.

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