Neighbor frustrated after boy shot twice on Charleston’s West Side

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (WSAZ) - A boy is recovering from being shot in broad daylight on Charleston’s West Side early Wednesday morning.

Charleston Police Lt. Tony Hazelett said the boy was shot once in the leg and once in the lower stomach. He believes the injuries are non-life-threatening.

Police were called to the intersection of Glenwood and Central avenues around 8:30 am to find the boy lying in the street.

Pam Harper, who lives in an apartment across the street, said her routine was interrupted.

“I was watching the news and I heard pop, pop, pop, pop pop,” she recalled. “I thought, ‘oh crap, not again’”

Hazelett said several witnesses reported seeing a man wearing dark clothing running from the scene.

”We’ve provided extra patrols in this area this shooting here happened very early in the morning,” he said. “It’s one of those things where it just happened, we were on patrol, we responded very quickly we were right in the area it just so happened it happened really early.”

The shooting took place just across the street from Harper’s apartment. She said incidents like this are becoming normal.

“There are still things we can do to make our neighborhood safer,” Harper said. “You hear these gunshots not once in a blue moon, once every two or three weeks at least, you hear it and you’re like ‘wonder if that was gunshots, oh well’”

She said she is worried about her and her neighbors’ safety and wants to make sure the city’s most vulnerable residents can feel at peace in their own neighborhood.

“What is it that people want us to do? Just sit up, curl up in a ball and die?”

“Well, I’m not going to, I’m a fighter and I will fight tooth and nail for my people that live here, my friends and neighbors, I will do whatever I have to do if I have to go on every news station in the country, I will because something’s got to be done for us old and disabled people. We’re old; we ain’t dead yet.”

The suspect is still on the run.

Charleston Police are asking people who live in the area or run a business that has security cameras who captured anything to contact them.

Copyright 2022 WSAZ. All rights reserved.