photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

A Lawrence Police Department patrol vehicle is pictured June 28, 2022.

A teenager was brought into Lawrence Memorial Hospital early Tuesday morning with a gunshot wound to the foot, according to police.

The 17-year-old was reported to be at the hospital with the wound, which was not life-threatening, around 12:30 a.m., and at the same time, police were responding to a call of gunshots heard in the 2400 block of Louisiana Street, said police spokesperson Laura McCabe. Officers responding to the incident on Louisiana Street found a vehicle with a bullet hole in the roof and shell casings nearby, McCabe said.

After questioning the gunshot victim, investigators believe the bullet hole in the car and the gunshot victim are connected to a string of calls regarding people firing paintballs throughout the city on Monday night, McCabe said.

“Through interviews and physical evidence, we suspect the incidents are related,” McCabe said.

Police responded to calls Monday night in the 1500 block of Wedgewood Drive around 9 p.m., where a witness was reporting that someone in a small black car shot her residence with a paintball gun, McCabe said.

Police responded to another call around 10:30 p.m. near Broken Arrow Park, where a witness reported hearing paintball gunfire, and around 4:45 a.m. police found paintball remnants and paintball gun casings at the park, McCabe said.

Around 10:40 p.m. a witness reported that a group of people in their late teens or early 20s in three vehicles were yelling at one another near the 1600 block of Haskell Avenue. The witness said that one of the people had an airsoft gun and fired it at another vehicle after the witness heard comments from the people about shooting each other, McCabe said.

The investigation is ongoing and the department declined to release additional information as to how the gunshot victim and the paintball incidents are related.

“Since this is an active investigation and we are still conducting interviews, we don’t want to influence any witness accounts,” McCabe said.

The Lawrence Police Department is asking anyone with information about these events to call 785-832-7509 or the department’s tip line at 785-843-TIPS (8477).