A violent month showed no signs of stopping as two men were found shot Sunday in the 1500 block of Hyman Avenue.
At around 7:12 a.m., officers with the Kinston Department of Public Safety responded to a call of a reported shooting and found Dontae Jerell Fordham, 24, and Enricoh Dejuan Rufus, 22, lying in the street with gunshot wounds.
Both victims were transported to Vidant Medical Center in Greenville for treatment. Beth Anne Atkins, with Vidant corporate communications, said Fordham was in fair condition as of noon Monday, but couldn’t find Rufus in the hospital record system.
“These types of incident can be cyclical — they do come around from time to time in any community,” KDPS Director Bill Johnson said. “Very concerned that we’re having, one — first and foremost — violent acts committed in our community. Secondly, that they are coming so close together.”
He continued, “When you look at our stats, we have been trending down in the area, especially with the violent crime we have. But, those stats are the past from this moment, right now. Past. So, we certainly cannot rest on the work that we have done. We have to continue daily to work with these incidents happening in the community.”
Investigators have yet to determine whether recent shootings are gang-related or even related to each other at all.
The Police Executive Research Forum conducted a study of county and city law enforcement nationwide in 2010, and more than 62 percent of the 166 agencies surveyed responded that gun crime is gang-related, and a similar amount responded the same about drug-related incidents.
“Local police linked gun crime most closely to drug and gang issues,” according to the report. “Nearly two-thirds of responding agencies ranked each of those two factors as ‘very important’ in causing their local gun crime. More than half of the agencies said that use of guns in robberies was a very important factor.”
Through an effort dubbed Project 61, KDPS works with various agencies, including the Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office, the State Bureau of Investigation and federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to arrest suspects typically involved in drug and gun crimes.
The project grew out of trying to stop criminal activity before it results in spikes like the 2011 homicides that included the death of U.S. Marshal Warren “Sneak” Lewis.
At the outset of Project 61 in August 2012, Deputy U.S. Marshal Bryan Konig — who worked in the effort to address local crime in 2011 — praised the program’s ability to increase cooperation among agencies.
“I can’t discuss it enough,” Konig said. “The interagency cooperation is how we all stay in business. The teamwork of the Marshal service, ATF, ALE, SBI, the Kinston PD, Lenoir County Sheriff’s Office — everybody that was involved out there — it was instrumental in combating the crime problem that Kinston has and the crime problem that everybody has.”
The Hyman Avenue shootings remain under investigation.
“We have committed quite a few of our resources to working these particular incidents, as well as getting assistance from other agencies in working toward resolving this,” Johnson said.
Anyone with information on the incident is asked to call KDPS Cmdr. Rick Harrell at 252-939-3721 or the TIPS line at 252-939-4020.
Wes Wolfe can be reached at 252-559-1075 andWes.Wolfe@Kinston.com. Follow him on Twitter at @WolfeReports.
Notable recent shooting incidents in Kinston
Sunday: Two injured on Hyman Avenue
Nov. 5: One dead, two injured on East Capitola Avenue; two unharmed at corner of East Shine and South East streets
Nov. 1: One injured on East Shine Street
June 30: One unharmed on Adkin Street
June 14: One dead on Cedar Lane
April 29: One injured on Nelson Street
April 13: One injured near corner of East Washington Avenue and North East Street
April 12: One dead, one injured near corner of East Washington Avenue and North East Street