More people have been injured or killed by gunfire in Jamestown in the first seven and a half months of this year than nearly the last two combined.

That information, by the Jamestown Police Department, was compiled even before Friday afternoon’s targeted drive-by shooting on Prendergast Avenue that left one person dead and landed another in the hospital.

An investigation into the shooting that resulted in the death of 35-year-old Jesus Batista Perez remains ongoing. The department on Monday evening said two people — 32-year-old Joseph A. Fontanez Walker and 22-year-old Kevin L. Roldan-Pantojas — had been taken into custody though no charges were announced.

Police Chief Timothy Jackson on Monday shared the department’s summary of confirmed shooting incidents. The statistics, which also include year-to-year information, are included in JPD’s annual report made available to the public.

Through Aug. 13, there have been 16 confirmed shootings in the city. Those are tracked by the department as instances where a victim suffered an injury, shell casings were located by officers, bullet holes were identified in property or where evidence shows shots were fired.

For all of 2021, there were 19 confirmed shooting incidents in Jamestown. Two people were killed and another was injured in those shootings, the department noted in its statistics.

A year before that, in 2020, there were 14 confirmed shootings that led to four injuries. No deaths by gunfire were reported in 2020.

In 2019, there were 11 confirmed shootings that resulted in three injuries. There were no deaths reported that year.

Through Aug. 13, six people have been injured in shootings, one of which resulted in a fatality. In that instance, which occurred in late April, a 37-year-old Lockport man was shot in the area of East Sixth Street at American Place. The victim, identified as Shawn Black, was later pronounced dead at UPMC Chautauqua.

Last week’s fatal drive-by on Prendergast means the city this year has more documented injuries and deaths by gunfire than the last two years combined and has nearly matched that of the last three years combined.

City Council President Tony Dolce announced at a press conference Friday that a citywide forum will be held the week after Labor Day in September. An exact location for the forum has not been identified, but Dolce said it will include the police chief and city director of development to look at neighborhood and housing issues as well as public safety.

“We’re all frustrated,” Dolce said Friday of the recent uptick in violence. “We’re all upset about this, and we’re going to work diligently to try to do the best we can to try to pull this back and end the tide of this rash of gun violence in our community.”

Dolce said he was just as frustrated as the public by the recent gun violence, and noted that local stats mirror what is happening elsewhere.

“It’s a nationwide trend, not to pass it off and make an excuse,” he said, “but we’ve seen an uptick here just like we have in other communities. You can take a look at what some other communities have implemented to try to combat this. This has really taken off, I would say, in the last year or so.”