Police probe shooting in Springfield

Three people were sent to hospitals, police had one person in custody and were seeking other “persons of interest” after a shooting Wednesday afternoon on Summer Street.
http://rutlandherald.com/article/20140612/THISJUSTIN/306129999

Police probe shooting in Springfield By Brent Curtis Staff Writer | June 12,2014 Photo by Len Emery Investigators gather at the scene of a shooting Wednesday on Summer Street in Springfield. SPRINGFIELD — Three people were sent to hospitals, police had one person in custody and were seeking other “persons of interest” after a shooting Wednesday afternoon on Summer Street. The identities and the conditions of the three injured people were not available at press time, but police said only one of them was shot. Two of the injured people were taken to Springfield Hospital while the third was airlifted to Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in Lebanon, N.H. Police said all three were alive when they arrived at the hospitals. “Initial investigations indicate that the subjects involved were known to one another,” Vermont State Police said in a press release Wednesday night. “One suspect is in custody.” Police said they were still looking for other “persons of interest” in the case. Springfield Police Chief Doug Johnston said officers were initially called to the area of 47 Summer St. for a report of a man chasing another person up a hill with a baseball bat. Whether that incident is related to the shooting that sent three people to hospitals at 3:35 p.m. is unclear, the chief said. An hour after the shooting, the sprawling red apartment building on Summer Street — a stone’s throw from downtown — was cordoned off by yellow tape and both Springfield and state police cruisers lined the steep roadway leading up to the scene. More than an hour after police arrived, a woman was handcuffed and taken into custody inside Village Pizza roughly 100 yards down the hill from 47 Summer St. Johnston declined to say whether that arrest was the one referred to in the state police press release. He did not identify the woman taken into custody. Two of the people taken to the hospital were being treated for head injuries that the chief said were not gunshot wounds. Only one person was shot, suffering a wound to the torso, Johnston said. He declined to identify any of the injured people, saying only it was a mix of adult men and women in the apartment. The motive for the shooting is unclear, the chief said during a brief press conference at the police station three hours after the incident. “There are a lot of things going on in this case that will probably come together over time,” he said. Police spent the afternoon searching for two suspects believed to have been involved in the shooting. Johnston declined to name the suspects. Where police were searching was also unclear — Johnston was called away before reporters finished asking questions. However, police searched earlier in the day on Route 143. Springfield Police, including Johnston, and state police were involved in what the co-owner of Village Pizza said was the arrest at gunpoint of one of her employees. Robin Iliopoulos said that one of her employees came in a half-hour late for work at 4:30 p.m. Before she arrived, police had called looking for her, Iliopoulos said, and soon after she arrived for work, officers with firearms drawn took her into custody in the back of the building. “She’s worked for us for three years,” Iliopoulos said. “She’s just a nice girl who I think got caught up in something bad. I don’t know any other reason why troopers would train their guns on her. It’s a sad day to live here.” The woman was not armed when she was taken into custody, Iliopoulos said.brent.curtis@rutlandherald.com