Breaking: Man Survives Shooting in Latest Haverhill Gunfire Incident

(Jay Saulnier file photograph for WHAV News.)

(Jay Saulnier file photograph for WHAV News.)

A Lawrence man was Medflighted to Boston for treatment of a reported gunshot wound after apparently being struck early Monday morning on Main Street.

The unidentified 35-year-old reported being shot at about 3:30 a.m., Monday, on Main Street near Eighth Avenue, according to Haverhill Police. Police learned of the shooting when it received a call from a local hospital, Detective Capt. Stephen J. Doherty Jr. told WHAV. The wound was considered “non-life-threatening,” he added.

The shooting took place in an area where previously suspected gang retaliation has occurred, but police said it was too early in the investigation to speculate on motives. No arrests have yet been made, Doherty said.

Reports late Sunday night of gunshots fired off Plaistow Road were initially determined to be a car backfiring. However, detectives are renewing their reviews of all such reports.

City Council Suspends Rules to Discuss Gang Violence

The latest gunfire incident comes as the Haverhill City Council announces it will suspend its rules tonight to discuss public safety with Police Chief Alan R. DeNaro and Mayor James J. Fiorentini.

Since January, Haverhill has been the location of five reported shootings—two of them fatal. The first reported shooting of 2018 took place on Portland Street in late January, leading to the arrest of a Temple Street man and his Methuen girlfriend on attempted murder charges after they fired at a 20-year-old Haverhill resident. In April, shots were fired at police on Nichols Street by Manuel Soto and Javonnie Chambers, who led officers on a multi-state high-speed chase ending in Windham, N.H. Weeks later, city man Jeffrey Larkin was shot and killed on Emerson Street. His killer remains at large.

As WHAV previously reported, much of the city’s gunfire is related to what police say is a “gang war” seemingly kicked off by the May 2016 shootings at Swasey Field. Two rival groups put police on notice in May 2018 when 20-year-old Nike Colon was gunned down in a drive-by shooting in Mount Washington. Rival gang member Eddy Almonte was arrested in Virginia on a Haverhill-based warrant for Colon’s murder. Indicted by a grand jury in June, Almonte’s case continues in Superior Court next month. In a retaliatory strike for the murder of Colon, his 18-year-old friend Rony Vasquez, of 11 High St., shot a male gang associate of Almonte’s on Fifth Avenue on June 15. That person survived his injuries, which also required surgery at a Boston hospital.

Listen to 97.9 WHAV FM for continuing developments.