One dead, multiple shot including doctor during weekend violence
SOUTH BEND, Ind.-- The string of violence started on North Brookfield Street Saturday evening, taking the life of 16-year-old Fredrick Williams, who was shot and killed in a vehicle.
A few hours later, another shooting on the Northeast side, leaving one person with non-life-threatening injuries.
Just down the block from the first fatal shooting on the 1800 block of Fassnacht Avenue, one Sandusky, Ohio doctor, originally from South Bend was also shot in a drive-by shooting while working on his car.
“At that time, it was me and three other people standing around the car and I didn’t even see the car coming at all, it came up North on Brookfield and turned right into Fassnacht and I felt it I think before I heard it,” Family Medicine Physician Joseph Jackmovich.
Joe Jackmovich was shot twice in the leg and is recovering from those wounds. He said he doesn’t believe he was the intended target.
“It happens really fast,” Jackmovich said. “I don’t know if it was related to the homicide earlier that day or something but there’s reason to believe it wasn’t completely random which kind of makes me feel better, the randomness of it would be more worrying.”
Still in disbelief, he describes his experience as something you would see out of a movie.
“I just felt like a line of heat and I knew immediately and just said I’m shot and started trying to get to the house, and then I kind of went into physician thinking like okay what’s in that part of the leg,” Jackmovich said. “I finally reached back to actually make sure I was shot and not just like grazed or something like that, the classic movie, touch something you come back with a handful of blood”
Jackmovich, considers himself lucky, saying things could’ve been way worse
“I can walk decently well with a cane, my left legs got pretty good mobility and not really a lot of pain,” Jackmovich said. “Nothing got hurt, like vitally. My sensations are completely intact on both sides. I don’t have any numbness, any tingling, muscle strengths there, it’s pretty remarkable.”
Even after the shooting, the South Bend native says he doesn’t feel unsafe in the city and plans to move back home the near future.
“I know I still feel safe in the city,” Jackmovich said. “I mean these kinds of things happen and they’re scary and i hope it gets better defiantly because it seems like it’s getting worse but it’s hard to really say for sure once it’s a personal thing and not a matter of statistics.”
No arrests have been made at this time.
If you or anyone knows any information about Saturday’s shootings, you’re urged to call St. Joseph County Metro Homicide or Michiana Crime Stoppers.