Man with gunshot wound found on Grove plaza in crowded downtown Boise
A man with an apparent gunshot wound was found on The Grove plaza in downtown Boise on Saturday night about the time an Idaho Steelheads game ended in the adjacent arena, police told the Idaho Statesman.
A police officer working at the Steelheads game found the man on the plaza at about 9:35 p.m. with what appeared to be a gunshot wound to the leg, said Lt. Jim Quackenbush of the Boise Police Department. The man was conscious and taken to a hospital, Quackenbush said.
“At this time there is no confirmed information about how the man was shot,” the department tweeted on Saturday night. “He was in possession of a firearm. There is no evidence of an ongoing threat at this time.”
The man remained in the hospital with non-life threatening injuries as of Sunday afternoon, Boise police spokesperson Haley Williams told the Idaho Statesman in a message.
The man was found by himself “right in the middle of the plaza,” Quackenbush said. Officers immediately searched for possible suspects. No suspects or witnesses were immediately found, Quackenbush said, but police planned to check security camera footage to learn more.
Williams said police had not yet confirmed how the man received a gunshot wound and declined to say what the man told police. Williams said that information was “still part of the open investigation.”
“There continues to be no evidence that anyone else was involved or that there are outstanding suspects,” Williams said on on Sunday.
Police officers were seen questioning patrons at the Buffalo Wild Wings restaurant on the plaza by a Statesman reporter who was there. The restaurant eventually asked customers to leave and it shut down early. At least one downtown establishment locked its doors with customers inside after receiving word of the incident, according to Statesman reporters who were in that business.
A large crowd of hockey fans leaving Idaho Central Arena spilled out onto the the plaza shortly after the man was found, Quackenbush said. The Steelheads had just wrapped up a 5-1 victory over the Tulsa Oilers.
Reporters Ian Max Stevenson, Ron Counts, Paul Schwedelson and Shaun Goodwin contributed to this report.
This story was originally published February 12, 2022 at 10:31 PM.
