Three boys were hospitalized with serious gunshot injuries after a late-night shooting outside a north Phoenix apartment complex, where police found a red sedan peppered with bullets and began searching for the gunman who fled before officers arrived.
The shooting drew wider attention because it happened during a violent stretch in the same part of north Phoenix. Police were already handling an officer-involved shooting nearby early Thursday, and another fatal shooting was reported later that day along Greenway Parkway. Investigators have not publicly linked those cases, but the cluster of gunfire left residents shaken and added urgency to the search for whoever opened fire on the teens near the apartment building.
Police were called just after 10 p.m. Wednesday to the apartment complex off Greenway Road in the 28th Street area after reports of a shooting. When officers arrived, they found two boys with gunshot wounds at the scene. A third boy had already been taken to a hospital before police got there. Witnesses told local television crews the gunfire came in a long burst, not a single exchange. Neighbor Adan Olivas said the shots seemed to go on for several minutes and sounded far heavier than the pops residents sometimes hear from fireworks or traffic. By the time patrol officers reached the complex, the shooter had already left, police said. A red sedan remained behind with multiple bullet holes visible in its body and windows, becoming one of the clearest pieces of physical evidence in the first hours of the investigation.
Phoenix police said all three victims were younger than 18 and had serious injuries. Officers did not publicly release their names or exact ages, and authorities had not explained by the weekend whether the boys knew the shooter or were struck inside or outside the car. Sgt. Lorraine Fernandez, a police spokesperson, said officers canvassed the area, secured the scene and turned the case over to detectives for evidence collection and follow-up interviews. Witness accounts filled in some of the confusion from the first response. One neighbor told AZFamily that he drove one wounded boy to a hospital before first responders arrived. Firefighters took the other two victims for treatment. Another witness said one injured teen was on the ground and another was still in the driver’s seat when neighbors realized how many people had been hit. Even with those details, major questions remained open by Sunday, including how many shooters were involved and what started the gunfire.
The shooting landed in a neighborhood that had already seen several major police investigations. Less than five hours later, officers shot and killed an armed man near 32nd Street and Paradise Lane after, police said, he ignored commands to drop a handgun and kept walking toward officers. No officers or bystanders were hurt in that case. Then, at about 8:18 p.m. Thursday, officers responded to another shooting near Cave Creek Road and Greenway Parkway, where 27-year-old Emmett Henry Yazzie Jr. was found critically wounded and later died. Police arrested 24-year-old Mario Esparza the next day in that homicide. Authorities have not said that either case is tied to the shooting of the three boys. The Greenway corridor has surfaced in other recent police cases as well, including a 2024 robbery homicide near 28th Street and Greenway Road and a 2022 shooting in which two boys were found wounded inside a vehicle near 29th Street and Greenway. Those earlier cases do not establish a link, but they add context to why residents reacted so strongly to another night of gunfire there.
As of the latest public updates, no arrest had been announced in the shooting that wounded the three boys, and police had not released a suspect description, a vehicle description or any court filing tied to the case. Detectives were still working through the steps that often shape the first break in a shooting investigation: reviewing surveillance video, checking nearby cameras, processing shell casings and damaged property, and re-interviewing witnesses after the scene was stabilized. Police also had not announced any planned briefing or set a date for a fuller public update. That left the case in an early stage, with basic facts still unsettled in public. Investigators had not said whether the boys had gathered at the complex before the shooting, whether the red sedan was parked or moving when the shots were fired, or whether the gunman approached on foot or from another vehicle. Those unanswered details will likely determine whether detectives frame the case around a targeted attack, a dispute or some other encounter.
For neighbors, the first memory was sound. Olivas said he heard a rapid series of shots, then screaming, with people yelling for someone to call police and help the wounded. Another resident, who declined to be identified, said he looked out his window after hearing the commotion and then went outside to see what he could do. A separate witness said the scene left him in shock. Their accounts described the same progression: gunfire, panic, neighbors stepping into the open, and then the hard realization that children had been hit. By daylight, the apartment complex had become a crime scene marked by police tape, investigators and the red sedan left behind with visible bullet damage. Olivas said the violence felt especially jarring because residents did not expect something like that to erupt so close to home. The public picture of the case remains built largely from those first frantic moments, because police have released only limited details beyond the boys’ ages, the severity of their injuries and the fact that the shooter was gone when officers arrived.
By Sunday, the three boys were still being treated for serious injuries, and Phoenix police had not announced an arrest in their case. The next public milestone is likely to be a detective update that identifies a suspect, outlines surveillance findings or confirms a booking connected to the shooting.
Author note: Last updated March 15, 2026.