Police say a 15-year-old boy whose body was found Nov. 6 in a car in a northeast Salem neighborhood was shot and killed.
The Salem Police Department said at the time it was investigating a “suspicious death.” Agency spokeswoman Angela Hedrick said Monday that the case was “categorized as a homicide investigation” within a week after the teen was found dead.
“Detectives are not releasing details about the injury other than it was from gunfire,” Hedrick said in an email.
The department declined to release the name of the victim “even though he is deceased,” she said. “It is our practice to refrain from naming minors involved in criminal investigations. In this case, the decedent is a minor in a criminal investigation who also happens to be the victim.”
The shooting comes as police, city, county and school district leaders are meeting Monday night to discuss an increase in gun violence in Salem over the past five years, much of it driven by teenagers.
Police responded around 7:30 a.m. Nov. 6 to a report of an unconscious person in a vehicle in the 1000 block of Northeast Evergreen Avenue. The area is near the Jory Apartments, 909 Park Ave. N.E.
Officers arrived to find the teen boy dead in the vehicle, police said in a statement a day after the teen was found dead.
Salem police at the time asked anyone with information about this teen’s death to call the agency’s tips line at 503-588-8477.
Contact reporter Ardeshir Tabrizian: [email protected] or 503-929-3053.
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Ardeshir Tabrizian has covered criminal justice and housing for Salem Reporter since September 2021. As an Oregon native, his award-winning watchdog journalism has traversed the state. He has done reporting for The Oregonian, Eugene Weekly and Malheur Enterprise.
