PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) — A shooting late Monday night resulted in a crime scene spanning nearly four blocks in Providence’s Federal Hill neighborhood.
According to Providence Police Major David Lapatin, three men were in a car on Bridgham Street between Westminster and Carpenter streets when another vehicle pulled up and opened fire around 10 p.m.
One man, identified as Vladimir Soto, 31, was shot in the face. On Tuesday, Lapatin said he “believes [Soto] is going to be fine.”
The two other men in the vehicle, ages 26 and 28, suffered lacerations, according to Lapatin. He said it’s unclear at this time whether those were from bullet fragments, glass from the car, or bushes while running from the shooting scene.
The men made their way through yards on Carpenter Street and up Knight Street toward Broadway, leaving a trail of blood for detectives to follow, Lapatin said. They eventually got into another vehicle and were taken to Rhode Island Hospital.
No word on any suspects, but Lapatin said the shooting didn’t appear to be random.
“I think they were following them,” he said. “I think they were targets.”
When asked Tuesday about recent violence, including a deadly shooting on Broad Street and a “suspicious death” at Roger Williams Park, Lapatin said he thinks crime in the city is “still relatively low.”
“We have upticks like this. We get on them, we know how to deal with them, we’ve been doing it for a while, and that’s just what we’ll do,” Lapatin said. “We know where to increase manpower and where to keep our people to keep the violence down.”
