Cumberland Police are Investigating 3 Different Shootings
Cumberland Police are Investigating 3 Different Shootings in 8 Days
CUMBERLAND, Ind. — The town of Cumberland has seen an uptick in gun violence this summer.
There have been three shootings in the area in a little over the past week. One on Sunday afternoon left a teenager injured with police believing it was tied to a drug deal.
The shooting happened just before 4 p.m. inside of a home in the 800 block of Coolee Lane. A bullet hole was left in the front window of the home.
According to Detective Sergeant Mark Waggoner with the Cumberland Police Department, they do have a person of interest that they’re searching for in connection to Sunday’s shooting thanks to front door camera footage from neighbors, however, the victim who was shot in the leg is not wanting to cooperate with investigators. Waggoner told WISH-TV the young victim is on a probation sentence issued from a Marion County court and has had previous run-ins with police.
“We don’t have much information on the suspects right now and there’s not a lot of cooperation happening, so we’re hoping to get more cooperation as we go through,” Waggoner said.
Police said the person of interest is a man who was carrying a blue backpack that day and a ski mask over his face.
Prior to Sunday, Waggoner said there were two other shootings that happened near the same intersection in town. There’s no evidence at this time that suggests those two incidents involved the same people.
So far this year, there have been six nonfatal shootings in Cumberland and two of them involved teenagers. The victim in the town’s lone fatal shooting back in June was 12 years old.
Cumberland has just over 7,200 residents with the population increasing by over 1,000 people since 2020. It sits along the border of Marion and Hancock counties just east of Indianapolis. Waggoner said a lot of what happens in Marion county relating to gun violence ends up trickling into their town.
“From 2020 to now, we’ve definitely seen a higher uptick to what we’ve seen previously to that,” he said. “I’m not sure what the causation is. I think Marion County has seen the uptick as well. Generally what the city sees, we kind of see as well.”
As to why more young people are obtaining and using guns to solve their issues, Waggoner can’t quite explain it.
“I’m not sure on what the answers going to be on how juveniles are getting guns, or why they’re going so quickly to resolving to gun violence instead of communication skills and conflict resolution skills. It’s just not something that’s being taught,” said Waggoner.
