5 wounded, 2 critically, in most recent shooting in Illinois city

PEORIA, Ill. (WEEK/Gray News) - A shooting Wednesday in Illinois wounded five people, two of them critically, police said.

Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria said an adult male and a juvenile male are in critical condition from the shooting Wednesday. The other gunshot victims, an adult male and three juvenile males, suffered non-life-threatening injuries, police said.

“When we arrived here, obviously there was chaos,” Echevarria said at the scene.

A sixth person suffered a laceration as a result of the incident.

Officers said they found the victims after responding to a pair of ShotSpotter alerts. The first alert indicated 10 rounds were fired, and the second alert indicated 19 more rounds were fired.

“You can imagine when you have six victims and family members, and everybody that comes out from their homes, nobody wants to hear that amount of gunfire in their neighborhood. One round is enough, let alone 29 rounds,” Echevarria said.

There have been six shootings since Saturday in Peoria, a city of about 110,000 people about 120 miles southwest of Chicago. Two people have been killed as a result.

A 17-year-old has been charged with one of the killings.

“We’ve had numerous shootings in the last week,” Echevarria said. “Our officers have been very busy working these shootings and these investigations, and we’ve got to figure out now what’s linked to what, and who’s causing this, and what is really going on behind the scenes between these parties.”

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