Omaha police are investigating a pre-dawn shooting near Fontenelle Park that left a person with a cut on the cheek and a car riddled with bullet holes, after officers responded to reports of gunfire near 42nd Street and Ames Avenue just after 3 a.m. Sunday. Police have not clarified whether a suspect is in custody, and the exact sequence of what happened on the street remains under investigation.
According to WOWT, officers found a person at the scene with a cut to the cheek but no gunshot wound, even though the car they had been riding in showed shattered glass and bullet holes. Police believe someone in another vehicle fired at the car, and investigators think the actual shooting happened a few blocks away near Pinkney Street before the damaged vehicle came to rest closer to 42nd and Ames. The person police believe fired the shots reportedly pulled into an NP Mart gas station afterward and called 911, though it remains unclear what prompted that call or what the dispatcher was told.
The injured person was taken to the hospital, but police said the trip was for a blood pressure issue rather than any underlying injury from the gunfire itself, leaving open questions about how the facial cut occurred. As of Sunday, the suspect's custody status remained unclear, per the station's report.
A Corridor Already Under the Infrastructure Microscope
The shooting happened just blocks from a stretch of North Omaha that city planners have already flagged as dangerous — though for very different reasons. Omaha Public Works has launched a Vision Zero safety project reconfiguring Ames Avenue from Fontenelle Boulevard to 16th Street from four lanes down to three. Keep Omaha Moving identifies Ames Avenue as part of the city's High Injury Network.
Just a mile or so away, the Omaha City Council held a public hearing earlier this month on a plan to replace the traffic signal at 42nd Street and Fontenelle Boulevard with a roundabout, an intersection where one resident reported more than 30 crashes over 16 years, as Hoodline previously reported. Fontenelle Park is a 108-acre North Omaha green space the city acquired in 1893 as part of landscape architect Horace Cleveland's municipal park system, according to ParkMagnet.
Fontenelle Park Has Seen Gunfire Before
Sunday's shooting is not the first violent incident reported near the park in recent years. In December 2024, Omaha police investigated a shooting near Fontenelle Park around 44th Street and Boyd in which a 14-year-old boy was wounded; he survived with non-life-threatening injuries, per NewsRadio 1110 KFAB. Police also responded to an October 2024 shooting near the park where emergency responders treated a woman in her 30s found injured outside a home, as reported by WOWT at the time.
Statewide, Nebraska's gun murder rate stood at 1.8 per 100,000 residents in 2023, about 22 percent below the national average, according to Center for Gun Violence Solutions data cited by Omnilert. The same data shows gun suicides, not homicides, account for the majority of Nebraska firearm deaths statewide.
What Charges Could Look Like if a Suspect Is Identified
If investigators identify and arrest whoever fired the shots, Nebraska law sets a high bar for consequences. Under Nebraska Revised Statute § 28-1212.02, intentionally discharging a firearm at an occupied motor vehicle is a felony, and § 28-1205 requires that any sentence for using a firearm during a felony be served consecutively — not concurrently — with the underlying offense, according to the Liberty Law Group. That means a conviction tied to this shooting could carry stacked prison time rather than overlapping sentences.
Victims in Douglas County cases also have statutory protections. Nebraska Revised Statute § 81-1848 guarantees crime victims notifications about court proceedings, case status, and suspect custody updates, per the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services, meaning the injured driver from Sunday's incident is entitled to updates as the investigation moves forward.
Recent Omaha Crime and Citywide Trends
Earlier this month, Hoodline reported that a West Omaha man was booked after firing at a car with a child inside.
Still, Omaha reported a year-over-year drop in overall citywide crime for 2025, building on decreases recorded in 2024, according to KETV.
