Post last updated at 10:51 p.m. Wednesday, March 6:
A person was killed in a shooting in the 700 block of Vermont Street in downtown Lawrence, according to police.
The shooting occurred around 5:10 p.m. Wednesday. Officers were blocking off the streets in the area and interviewing witnesses around 5:45 p.m. Wednesday.
One person at the scene who asked not to be named said they saw some sort of argument or altercation between two people. One person went away and a little time passed, but then they heard three gunshots.
“All of a sudden you hear, like, ‘pow, pow, pow,’ and then there’s a guy laying on the ground,” the person said.
A man at the scene, who also did not wish to be named but said he’s 65 years old, said that he was sitting on a bench at the bus stop just a few feet from the person when they were shot. The man said he didn’t know anything about an earlier altercation, but that he had seen someone ride up on a bike and shoot the person in the chest area at close range, then ride off.
Lawrence Police Sgt. Sam Hiatt said police were still working on figuring out exactly what happened, and he didn’t have a lot of details to release yet.
All Lawrence Transit buses are bypassing the stop across from the library “until it is no longer an active crime scene,” Adam Weigel, transit and parking manager for the city, said via email.
Police closed the Lawrence Public Library for the evening because of “an incident across the street,” the library posted to social media.
“We know there are a lot of witnesses to the incident,” the Lawrence Police Department said in a tweet. “We need witnesses to contact us at (785)832-7509.”
Police took a suspect into custody in connection with the shooting around 10:15 p.m. Further details were not immediately available Wednesday night.
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Andrea Albright (she/her), reporter, can be reached at aalbright (at) lawrencekstimes (dot) com. Read more of her work for the Times here. Check out her staff bio here.
— Reporter August Rudisell contributed to this post.
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