(Photo courtesy Facebook/Bloomington Police)
By Eric Stock
BLOOMINGTON – The Bloomington Police Department is investigating four separate shootings over the last few weeks and only one of those incidents has led to an arrest.
Police Chief Brendan Heffer told WJBC’s Susan Saunders there’s not a gang problem here.
PODCAST: Listen to Susan’s interview with Heffner and Mayer on WJBC.
“These are ongoing investigations, but I will tell you at this time they are not related,” Heffner declared.
The most recent incident happened early Monday morning, a 26-year-old man was shot in the chest by an unknown assailant.
Only one of the incidents led to an arrest, the large fight on Rainbow Avenue on Memorial Day. Two people were taken into custody.
A house on West Washington Street was hit by a bullet on June 3 and shots were reportedly fired at the Econo Lodge on May 28. Heffner said those incidents were late at night so there were few witnesses but he acknowledged witnesses are something reluctant to come forward for fear of retaliation. Heffner points out McLean County Crime Stoppers takes tips anonymously at (309) 828-1111.
“I can not tell you why (these happened),” Heffner said. “If we knew that it would help us out a lot.”
Missing persons
If you’ve seen more reports of missing children in Bloomington lately, it’s not necessarily because there have been more of them, it’s because police are trying to be more proactive.
“In the olden days, people would say wait 24 hours, but that’s not the case,” BPD spokeswoman Sara Mayer said. “We’ll immediately take a report, especially when you are talking (about) children, call right away.”
Mayer said that can help when it’s simply a case of a child wandering off or a teen runaway. The department will use social media to post a description of the teen to enlist the public’s help.
“We actually do take a lot of runaway reports unfortunately and there can be a lot of trouble that comes out of that,” Mayer said.
Police say statewide Amber Alerts are only issued when there’s suspicion a child could be in danger.
Eric Stock can be reached at [email protected].
