SOUTH BEND — One resident was injured and two others had vehicles damaged during an incident Wednesday night with someone firing a gun, according to the South Bend Police Department , but it's not clear if the victim was injured by a bullet or by debris knocked loose by a bullet.
Police were dispatched around 8:30 p.m. to the 1200 block of North Huey Street on July 17. The incident was logged as an aggravated assault-shooting with injury with three victims identified.
One person received a physical injury connected to the shots fired report and two people reported property damage to their vehicle, SBPD Director of Communications Ashley O'Chap explained.
South Bend police spoke about the incident during their Quarter 2 Public Safety Update on June 18 at the South Bend Police Department.
"We are still looking into it through our ballistics experts," Chief of Police Scott Ruszkowski said when asked if the victim was injured from a bullet or a fragment/debris.
He said their ballistics experts — whom he called the best in the country — are analyzing the ballistics, the amount of rounds and the actual evidence obtained from a person that was injured during that incident.
Ruszkowski said at this time the department doesn't know for sure, but based on the reports he's read and what he's reviewed, "We're still 50/50 on it and we'll find out once we have the expert weigh in, based on the evidence that they receive back."
Lt. Kayla Miller, within the department's detective bureau, clarified that there were multiple shots fired and someone with an injury.
"Just because there's shots fired and someone that has an injury, that doesn't mean that incident is necessarily a shooting," Miller said. "Someone has to be struck by a projectile from a gun or a firearm in order for an incident to be considered a shooting."
She said if someone is struck by debris, a blast or something from the house, an injury from those causes would not be considered a shooting injury.
"We are looking at this with our experts and going through those injuries and all the evidence before we will say whether not we can confirm there is a shooting victim or not a shooting victim," Miller said, adding there's quite a bit of evidence to go through.
Police have not released the condition of the victim injured.
Email Tribune staff writer Camille Sarabia at csarabia@gannett.com .
This article originally appeared on South Bend Tribune: South Bend Police ballistics experts investigate injury to see if it was a shooting or not
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