ELIZABETH CITY, N.C. — Elizabeth City police said one of the three teenagers hurt in Wednesday afternoon's shooting is out of the hospital and home recovering.
The two others are still getting treated, one of them for serious injuries.
Police said they got a call about shots fired on Speed Street, around 3:45 p.m. Wednesday to find two 16-year-olds and a 17-year-old hurt. There is still no suspect information as of Thursday evening, but investigators said they are actively looking into what led up to the shooting.
This isn't the only time a shooting took place on this street. In April of this year, three teenagers and an 8-year-old child got hurt in a shooting.
Residents along the street told 13News Now they are devastated to learn another group of young people are hurt by this gun violence, but they are not surprised.
It's because there is a growing number of adolescents getting shot. According to our 13News Now records, approximately 10 people under the age of 18 have been shot in 2023 in Elizabeth City.
This does not include two "underage victims" in which police wouldn't report specific ages in a South Road Street shooting last March.
It's a trend Elizabeth City Mayor Kirk Rivers wants to change.
He described how he showed up at the scene Wednesday after getting a call about the three teenagers shot. Rivers said he is growing tired and worrisome over the number of people hurting each other and how the violence is impacting those around it.
"The family that lived across the street, she had her children and her bags getting into the car," Rivers said. "As the mayor, I feel bad because I feel like I'm letting those children down."
Rivers has a long list of solutions from working with state legislators by making firing a gun in public a felony vs. a misdemeanor charge to working closer with parents on conflict resolution.
Accountability is the overall message Rivers is working to send out to his city. He said he wants himself, other city leaders, police officers, parents, and so many more to start taking accountability in keeping guns out of children's hands.
Rivers said he is working with parents and getting more programs involved to address behavioral issues with parents when something goes wrong with their children in school or the community.
"We all have to step up to the plate and talk to all the children, so that way they have a sense of belonging and it's not just shoot, shoot, shoot," Rivers explained.
It's not just the parents and city leaders. Mayor Rivers is getting more involved with landlords across several neighborhoods.
"When we start looking in and these houses have, what they would call, 'repeat offenders,' we're going to start writing to landlords and let them know they have a troubled house in the neighborhood and if they don't correct the problem, we will start evictions. We'll have to take the house," Rivers explained.
Another part of Rivers' solution is helping both children and adults learn more peaceful ways to resolve their problems by offering conflict resolution courses.
This, he said, will help disrupt that violent reality for families in his city.
"We're fighting and don't even recognize that the children are looking and seeing, so we have to watch what we say because the children are looking and watching," Rivers said.
Elizabeth City police, city leaders, and organizers of the city's "Moms Against Gun Violence" will hold a press conference Friday morning to detail their recent initiatives to help reduce gun violence in the city.