A Gary teen was charged as an adult Wednesday for allegedly shooting off guns with a friend in a backyard.
The Post-Tribune is not naming the boy, because he is 17. The friend and another male were arrested as juveniles, court records show.
Police responded around 8 p.m. Feb. 13 to 3rd Avenue and Burr Street for a shots-fired call that “sounded like automatic gunfire.” Eventually, they narrowed it down and found the boys in a backyard shooting “automatic pistols” on the 5200 block of W. 3rd Avenue.
The patrolman ordered them at gunpoint to drop the weapons, but they didn’t notice over the gunfire. Once it stopped and they realized the cops were there, two juveniles ran inside the back door.
After threatening to send a SWAT team, three juveniles walked out the front door where they were ordered to the ground. Police arrested them.
Officers noted some guns in the open in one bedroom and at least one more in another bedroom. They confiscated four guns after a search warrant. Some looked like they had a switch removed, which modifies a handgun to fire automatically.
The teen charged was on probation for an Unlawful Use of a Handgun case in Cook County Juvenile Division, records show.
