15-year-old shot three times in drive by while inside Tacoma home

TACOMA, Wash. — Gunshots ring out two nights in a row over the weekend in a normally quiet Tacoma neighborhood.

Tacoma police say a teen inside his home was shot in a drive-by shooting on 32nd Street Northeast near 49th Ave Northeast.

The teen’s mother tells KIRO 7 her son was inside eating a burger when bullets started flying into their home. They took cover – but her son was hit in the chest, as well as grazed in the leg and the hip. Incredibly, he was able to be released from the hospital after being treated.

In a Ring video from the victim’s family, you can hear at least 10 gunshots in the first shooting on Saturday night around 8 p.m. The shots are fired from a dark sedan that is stopped on the street outside the victim’s home.

Then shooters return on Sunday just before 6:30 p.m. in a different vehicle – a silver SUV. This time, another teen in the family is outside when the SUV drives by – then turns around and passes the home again. And that’s when shots rang out for a second night in a row. This time, no one was hit.

Neighbors – some who’ve lived there for 20 years – say nothing like this has ever happened before.

“What the heck is going on?” said John Betenson, who has lived in the neighborhood for nine years. He said he heard the gunshots on both Saturday and Sunday.

“They could get the wrong house, there could be crossfire,” Betenson said about his worries.

Another neighbor was too worried that the shooters would return to show her face on camera.

“There’s a lot of kids that play in this street so it’s scary… it’s like you don’t want to go out of your house,” the neighbor said.

Tacoma police say detectives are just getting started on the case. So far, no arrests.

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