(WWJ) It was a violent weekend in Detroit, with 12 people shot in a matter of hours Sunday night alone.
According to Detroit Police, seven people were shot when someone opened fire into a crowd of about 100 people at a vigil being held for a man who died in an ATV crash. At least one of the victims suffered life-threatening injuries
Police said they're looking for a lime green Chevy Camaro and a black GMC Yukon as the investigation continues in that incident, near Asbury Park and W McNichols.
Interim Detroit Police Chief James White said another deadly shooting happened at around 10:15 p.m. Sunday outside the Chopin bar on Chopin Street.
The victim was a man in his 30s.
"A heavily intoxicated suspect exits the bar. As he's exiting the bar, he indicates that he would like to shoot someone. He did in fact do that," White said, speaking at a news conference Monday. "The unfortunate part of that is it appears that this person is an innocent victim that had absolutely nothing to do with our suspect."
White said they have identified the Choppin bar shooter and he's confident the suspect will be brought in shortly.
White acknowledged that Detroit, like many other major cities, has been seeing an uptick in violent crime.
Year to date, White said the DPD has made 3,852 gun-related arrests.
A lot of these offenders, White said, are released on bond and then reoffend.
"What you have situations where people are using weapons, where people are firing into crowds, where people are resolving disputes with weapons, generally they're nor gonna stop because they missed. I mean, every nonfatal shooting is a fatal attempt at a murder...So it's likely they're going to go back and try again," White said.
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White said he knows that people in the public are often scared to come forward with information, but this is an all hands on deck issue for the city.
"We need the community's help. We need the community to let us know what they see, what they have, so that we can bring these folks to justice," White said.
"We have to get to a point where enough is enough. We get to the point where we have a right to live peacefully in our communities, and police can't do it alone. I can't put a police officers in every living room, I can't put a police officer in every car, and make people not have this type of conflict that leads to illegal gunfire. So we need the community, we need the clergy, and we need people to make better decisions so we can stop this violence and live the way that we all have a right, a civil right to live...and that's in peace and in safety."