The Block, a climbing wall on the face of a downtown building, is one of many attractions featured in a marketing campaign that focuses on the city as a destination. (Chattanooga Convention & Visitor’s Bureau Photo)Weston Wamp, a radio host and a former congressional candidate, called the police response to the BB gun shooting in downtown Chattanooga of his 18-year-old cousin “unacceptable” in a Facebook post.
The shooting happened at 2 p.m. on May 10 in the heart of Chattanooga’s tourist district, Wamp said.
According to his account of the incident, a gold or silver van with stickers on the rear window with a black female at the wheel pulled up at the corner of 4th Street and Broad Street. A black male passenger fired a CO2-powered gun three times, grazing Thomas Watts, a Soddy-Daisy senior, once in the elbow, Wamp said.
The gun appeared to be a pellet gun, but it was powerful enough to make three holes in the victim’s vehicle, according to widely shared posts by Wamp and the boy’s mother.
At the time Wamp made the Facebook post, he said the Chattanooga Police Department had yet to file a report, though the CPD disputed his account, saying a report was created about an hour after the incident happened.