Police examine possible links in city shootings

Shots were fired in seven incidents over seven days beginning Dec. 10; six people were injured.

01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, December 20, 2005

BY GREGORY SMITH
Journal Staff Writer

PROVIDENCE -- Detectives are looking for connections among some of seven shootings in recent days, one of which occurred on a corner in Mount Hope that the police say is notorious for drug peddling.

Shortly before 11 a.m. Friday, Markise Wilson, 23, of 150 Fillmore St., Wanskuck, was walking on June Street, near the Chad Brown housing project in his neighborhood, when several shots were fired from a passing car, the police said.

Wilson told the police that he ducked, but he was hit twice in the lower left arm. He was treated at Rhode Island Hospital.
Witnesses reported that a gray Pontiac Bonneville with Massachusetts plates left the area at high speed.

About an hour later, James Goddard, 16, of 19 Pleasant Court, Mount Hope, was standing at the corner of Pleasant Street and Pleasant Court, where drug sales are frequent, when six shots were fired from a gray Nissan Maxima.

Goddard was hit once in the hip and once in the buttock. He was treated at Hasbro Children's Hospital, according to Lt. Hugh Clements, detective commander.

Those were among at least seven shooting incidents over seven days, beginning Dec. 10. There may be connections among five of them, Clements said.

The first in the rash of shootings, in which two Providence men were wounded, occurred on Yorkshire Street, Wanskuck, on Dec. 10. Inside an apartment nearby, the police found a toy polar bear stuffed with cocaine.

Late on Dec. 13, about five gunshots were fired at a moving car on June Street, near the Chad Brown complex. A 21-year-old Providence man was wounded.

When asked last night, Clements said some of the shootings might have been related to inter-neighborhood feuds.

"Over the years there have been many feuds. We are investigating whether these recent shootings are connected in any way, which ones are connected and how they may be connected," Clements said.
"We have received information on which we can follow up," he said.
At least two of the attacks were drive-by shootings.

Another shooting occurred shortly before 6:30 p.m. Thursday. Tyrone Way, 26, of the Mattapan neighborhood of Boston, was shot in the left leg near 12 Osborn St., Smith Hill.

Way told the police that he was helping his girlfriend's uncle move out of his apartment when an unknown assailant shot him from behind. The victim was treated at Roger Williams Medical Center.

There were two more shooting incidents Thursday and Saturday, but nobody was injured.

On Thursday, no more than a half hour after Way was shot, the police raced to the vicinity of 14 Ledge St., in the North End, for a report of shots fired. Witnesses told the officers that they saw two males in dark clothing run away on Gillen Street.

Patrol Officers Theodore Michael and Michael Pattie apprehended two males at gunpoint behind 23 Gillen St. The officers said they found a 38-caliber, Taurus brand handgun with three rounds expended, in the snow nearby. The suspects were an 18-year-old from Opper Street, also in the North End, and a juvenile whose name the police withheld.

There was at least one bullet hole in a minivan parked at 14 Ledge St. It was not clear last night whether either suspect has been charged with a crime.

The seventh shooting occurred Saturday on Thurbers Avenue in South
Providence, but the police apparently do not see a link between that incident and the others.

At about 3:30 a.m., shots were fired through two of the windows of an apartment occupied by Kiki Mitchell, 29, of 259 Thurbers Ave. The police said eight other bullets apparently penetrated a vacant apartment next door.

Neighbors recovered 11 spent 9mm shell casings in a parking lot behind 247 Thurbers Ave.

Mitchell told the police that her brother is feuding with some unknown individuals.