Durham police name 15-year-old boy fatally shot early Sunday morning

The Durham Police Department has released the name of a 15-year-old boy who was fatally shot in northern Durham last weekend.

Police found Michael Harris at a local hospital early Sunday morning, where he later died, a police department news release stated. Police were initially dispatched to the 200 block of Seven Oaks Road. They believe Harris was shot there.

The News & Observer requested the 911 call, the police incident report and other information from Police Department on Monday afternoon, but had not received the records as of Thursday afternoon.

Harris is the second child fatally shot in Durham this summer. Tyvien McLean, 12, died in July. He was a sixth-grader at Lowe’s Grove Middle School.

The night McLean was shot, 10 people, including two other children, ages 3 and 8, were injured by gun violence in two shooting incidents in Durham.

Aggravated assaults with firearms rising

As of July 25, there were 18 homicides in Durham, according to police department statistics. In the same time period last year, there were 22.

There have been 283 reported aggravated assaults involving firearms in Durham this year, a 42% increase over the 199 reported incidents during the same time period last year, police statistics show

The number of aggravated assaults involving firearms in 2020 has been higher than in 2018 and 2019 since the first week of the year. The number of shootings in Durham spiked in May, and has remained high since then. There were more than 10 reported shootings in 10 out of 13 weeks between April 25 and July 25.

This story was originally published August 27, 2020 at 3:29 PM.