Michael Braun, and Melissa Montoya

The News-Press

Fort Myers police said Tuesday that a 6-year-old boy who was shot Monday night was a passenger with his mother in a car during a September 2015 shooting that injured another young Fort Myers boy.

Fort Myers Interim Police Chief Dennis Eads also said that the shooting in September could be connected to the shooting Monday night. Fort Myers police believe a man with the 6-year-old’s mother may have been the target.

City police said the Monday night shooting happened at an apartment complex about a block from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in the Dunbar section of Fort Myers.

According to police, at approximately 10:10 p.m. officers patrolling the area near Nelson Tillis Boulevard heard several gun shots. They responded to 3707 Nelson Tillis Blvd. in the Landings at East Pointe Apartments and located a 6-year-old child suffering from a gunshot wound.

The child was alert and conscious and was transported by EMS to Lee Memorial Hospital. The child is expected to recover from his injuries.

The preliminary investigation revealed that two suspects pulled up in a unknown make and model of SUV and began shooting in the parking lot. Police said they did not have information on who the suspects were shooting at but that their investigation is ongoing.

Several residents of the apartments late Monday night, who declined to give their names, said they heard multiple gunshots and then saw the child being rushed to the hospital minutes later..

Tuesday morning residents and others at the complex declined to talk about the shooting. Most said they had not seen nor heard anything Monday night.

The male child who was shot Monday was in a vehicle during a Sept. 23 2015 shooting that injured four people, including his mother and a 5-year-old male cousin, in Fort Myers. All told, seven people were shot on that date in four separate incidents. He was not hurt in that shooting police said.

In the 2015 shooting, the victims — including two adults in their mid-20s, a then 17-year-old, and the child — were shot as they rode in their car on Veronica Shoemaker Boulevard northbound near Dale Street. The victims, all of whom survived, were listed as Chancey Isom, 27, and Jatravia Isom, 25, of Fort Myers, Orvasia Green, 18, of Lehigh Acres, and Tazyhion Matthews, 5. Mathews is the cousin of the boy shot Monday.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Fort Myers Police Department at 239-321-7700, or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-780-TIPS or text message C-R-I-M-E-S (274637) Keyword FMPD. Tipsters can remain anonymous.

Landings at East Pointe is operated by Accolade Property Management, Inc., of Irving, Texas. The company operates 18 similar complexes in Texas, one in New Mexico and 12 others in Florida,

The News-Press videographer Kinfay Moroti contributed to this report.