A 15-year-old was charged with assault after police announced an arrest on Oct. 23, the day after Alvin McDowell was shot, according to WDRB.
McDowell, 51, told WDRB he was near a Walgreens on West Broadway on Oct. 22 when he saw a boy he believed was 13 attempting to take chips and a drink. He said he offered to cover the cost. Another teenager approached with a gun and shot him in the chest; McDowell said he tried to push the weapon away.
Doctors said the bullet came within two inches of McDowell’s heart, WDRB reported. He underwent surgeries and weeks of treatment at UofL Hospital. McDowell said he did not expect to survive and later thanked the first responders who helped him.
The shooting occurred amid other reported gun violence in the area. Hoodline previously reported on a separate West Broadway shooting that left a man with a chest wound described as non-life-threatening, and noted another shooting that injured a man in Louisville’s Shawnee neighborhood in October 2026. Hoodline also cited Louisville figures showing that areas with 7% of the city’s population accounted for more than 40% of homicides and non-fatal shootings from 2020 to 2025. Louisville Metro maintains a gun violence dashboard with data by police district.
