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GREENSBORO — A 26-year-old man was shot to death in the final hours of New Year’s Eve, becoming the city’s last homicide victim of 2011.

Police said they responded to a shooting call in the 900 block of Tuscaloosa Street at 7 p.m. They found Walter Anthony Alston Jr. lying in the street with a gunshot wound. He was only about a block from his home at 852 Broad Ave.

Alston was taken to Moses Cone Hospital where he died a short time later.

Police were looking for leads in the neighborhood Sunday, but could only say the shooting didn’t appear random. An investigation is ongoing but police said they had no suspects or witnesses as of late Sunday.

The homicide was the 26th of 2011. Most of the year’s victims were, like Alston, young black men killed with guns.

The killings mark the end of a three-year decline in the number of homicide victims in Greensboro.

The city saw 25 homicide victims in 2008, 18 in 2009 and 16 in 2010. Police said they couldn’t attribute the increase to any single factor but the area did see two multiple murders this year.

In July, police say a man fatally shot his 6-year-old son, his ex-girlfriend’s new boyfriend and a family friend. Hoanh Rcom, 34, faces several charges, including first-degree murder. Rcom shot two others who survived, including his ex-girlfriend, police say.

Guilford County deputies investigated a mass shooting in Pleasant Garden.

In November, authorities said, Mary Ann Holder, 36, shot to death her two sons, a niece, a nephew and her son’s girlfriend before shooting her self. She wounded her ex-boyfriend that day, police said.

Staff writer Dioni L. Wise contributed to this report.

Contact Joe Killian at 373-7023 or joe.killian@news-record.com