One person is dead after a shooting on Peoria's South Side.
Peoria Police Chief Eric Echevarria told WCBU that a person was found dead on the 800 block of Helen Street Thursday morning. The coroner was on the scene.
Echevarria said officers were dispatched around 10:20 a.m. and arrived to find a man deceased inside the house.
Peoria County Coroner Jamie Harwood identified the victim as 19-year-old Damar Watts of Peoria. Harwood said Watts died on the scene.
The death remains under investigation and an autopsy is scheduled for Friday.
It's the city's 18th homicide of the year, and the seventh to occur in Peoria or just outside city limits in the past two weeks.
The Helen Street shooting happened shortly after two people were shot nearby on Antoinette Street, and hours after six people were injured following a shooting incident on West Marquette.
At an afternoon news conference, Echevarria said it's believed the two deadly shootings on Antoinette and Helen are connected.
Speaking earlier outside the Helen crime scene, Echevarria said he doesn't have an explanation for the recent surge in gun violence.
"I wish I could tell you what is happening," he said. "There's a war on the streets right now, and I think people have decided that they're going to take justice into their own hands and commit these crimes that we're seeing."
Echevarria was asked how police can stop apparent retaliation in incidents of gun violence.
"I don't know how you prevent that, right? You know, we have juveniles and we have adults and we have juveniles and adults together oftentimes involved in these," he said. "Oftentimes, those are parents involved with their own juveniles in these situations. We need parents to be engaged with their children. We need the community to be involved, and we need people to speak up."
Echevarria said the department is asking anyone with knowledge on the incident to reach out.
"People need to start speaking up. People need to start sharing information," he said. "People know what happened. They know exactly what happened.
"We have people show up on the scenes before we could even get on the scenes at times. We have people in the public that know exactly what's going on. And they need to start speaking up and they need to start taking ownership and asking for their own communities back."
There is currently no suspect information. The case remains under investigation.
Echevarria asked people with information on the shooting to contact the Peoria Police Department at (309) 673-4521, text tip411, or call Crime Stoppers at (309) 673-9000.
