A 15-year-old boy was in stable condition Friday after he was rushed to an area hospital in critical condition Thursday evening when he was shot at Wedgewood Village Apartments in the Hilltop.
The shooting occurred shortly after 5:30 p.m. at the playground in the 700 block of Wedgewood Drive. The youth was taken to Nationwide Children’s Hospital in critical condition, but his status has since been upgraded, according to police.
Gun violence has plagued Wedgewood, the Hilltop apartment complex where 13-year-old Sinzae Reed was fatally shot in October.
On Feb. 13, Columbus City Council approved $44,800 in funding to install a new ShotSpotter gunfire detector to cover the area around the Wedgewood Village Apartments. ShotSpotter detectors alert authorities when shots are fired and speed up police response to gunfire.
The Dispatch looked at gun violence at the Wedgewood complex in a story in January, reporting that calls to Columbus police about shots fired at the complex have increased 57% since 2019, and the number of reports about a person with a firearm have increased by 143% over the same time period.
Eight homicides have taken place at Wedgewood and shootings have nearly quadrupled since 2019, with 21 shootings reported there in 2022.