Early-morning shooting in Old Town leaves two with minor injuries

Police have little information to work with after an early Saturday morning shooting in Old Town left two men in their 20s with minor injuries.

Wichita police Capt. Jose Salcido, bureau commander at Patrol South, said six officers and a supervisor were in Old Town to oversee bars closing early Saturday.

“By their accounts, it was a very slow night,” Salcido said.

Around 1:48 a.m., the officers heard shots coming from the 800 block of East Douglas. That’s near Douglas and Rock Island.

When the officers arrived on scene, they saw three people running to the south, across Douglas, Salcido said.

Officers detained one man in his 20s, who was found to have sustained a minor gunshot wound, just to the south of the Wichita Eagle building at 825 E. Douglas. The other two who ran away from the scene were not located, Salcido said.

A few minutes later, police responded to a “report of someone shot” in the 2000 block of South Erie, near Mount Vernon and Hillside.

The injured man reported he had been shot in the 800 block of East Douglas before he ran to the southeast of the Wichita Eagle building, where his girlfriend picked him up. According to Salcido, the man, also in his 20s, had minor injuries.

Police think the shooting was the result of an ongoing feud between two groups who met up in the 800 block of East Douglas, and that it was “very targeted,” Salcido said.

“This is in no way connected to any establishment in the area,” Salcido said. “These groups were very close to each other based on the evidence, so the danger to everyone else was kind of minimized.”

Police did not have more information about where the “groups” came from or their size – neither of the two men shot early Saturday were cooperative with police, Salcido said.

He could not say whether they were gang members – “There’s no information in our records right now to say that,” he said.

“We’d like to wish a speedy recovery to the two victims that were shot and hope that, at some point, they cooperate with detectives and provide us with additional information on the case,” Salcido said.

The Wichita Police Department is asking any potential witnesses to the shooting to call them at 316-268-4191.

‘It could have shot him in the head’

During the gunfire, a stray bullet went into the rear passenger-side tire of Chesney Nicholson’s car, parked on Douglas.

Her boyfriend was sitting in the front passenger seat, waiting for her to get off work at Emerson Biggin’s at 2 a.m., she said.

“It just scares me,” she said. “If it would have been two feet higher, it could have shot him in the head.”

Nicholson, 28, has been a bartender at Emerson Biggin’s for two years.

She recalled hearing the gunshots around closing time Saturday and staying “well clear of everything” until she saw multiple police vehicles on scene.

The workers inside the bar didn’t leave until 3:45 a.m., she said. She could not take her car home because it sat in the middle of the crime scene.

Early Saturday, she checked for damage to her car but couldn’t find any.

A friend picked it up to take it to an auto shop because it had a flat tire, she said. The reason: A mechanic found an intact bullet in the tire.

“I was like, ‘Are you kidding me?’” Nicholson said. “I was shocked.”

Her boyfriend was not injured.

Stray gunfire from the exchange also struck another nearby occupied car, Salcido said, causing about $500 in damage. No one in that car was injured.

This story was originally published June 18, 2016 at 2:08 PM with the headline "Early-morning shooting in Old Town leaves two with minor injuries."