LEWISTON — Local, county and federal law enforcement officers responded Monday afternoon to a reported shooting on Knox Street, and according to witnesses at least two, maybe three people were taken into custody.

Lewiston police, Androscoggin County Sheriff’s deputies and U.S. marshals were spreading out among Knox, Bates and Blake streets around 4:30 p.m. after receiving several 911 calls for gunshots.

Witnesses on the corner of Blake and Maple streets said they heard five or six gunshots coming from the Knox Street area.

Angela Russell said she saw a group of five people cutting across streets by running between apartment buildings.

The group split halfway between Bates and Blake streets, Russell said, with two going around the back of the 82 Maple St. apartment building and three continuing alongside the building to emerge onto Blake Street in front of Dee’s Market.

Russell said she and another woman who was working in a garden across the parking lot locked eyes at the sound of the gunshots.

“Is that what I think it is?” Russell recalled the woman asking.

“It definitely was,” Russell said. “I was just sitting out here like I sometimes do and then I heard those shots go off. I texted my sister to call the police because, you know, I didn’t want to be seen calling the police. Then I kind of hunkered down in a corner. I was about to go inside when I heard (police) say ‘on the ground, on the ground, now.’”

At least two, possibly three, were taken into custody by police, according to witnesses. One of the men dropped a large can of nitrous oxide while running across the parking lot.

Lewiston Police Officer Ryan Gagnon takes a person into custody on Blake Street Monday afternoon after shots were fired in downtown Lewiston. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal

Crystal Scott, another Blake Street resident, said she heard bangs on the door on her side of the apartment building, but did not open the door.

“That’s what they do. They come and knock on our building, you know, and try to get into our building,” Scott said. “I’m like, uh-uh, I’ve got a 2-year-old and a 1-year-old upstairs.”

The shooting is one of more than 25, one of them fatal, so far this year in the city that have rocked residents’ sense of calm.

Police Chief David St. Pierre held a news conference Aug. 29 promising federal support to combat “a recent uptick” in gun violence, specifically among youths. Among that support was a U.S. marshal’s presence.

Lewiston police were not immediately available for comment.

It also was not immediately clear if calls around the same time for a gunshot wound to the chin were related to the shooting.

“It’s become a place that’s like,” Russell said. “I don’t want to live here anymore. Our saying back in the day was, ‘you can go where the light touches except Lewiston and Auburn. We don’t go there.”

Law enforcement officials talk with two men that they took into custody Monday afternoon after shots were fired in downtown Lewiston. Russ Dillingham/Sun Journal