A man who had been found with a gunshot wound in his car on a Bixby Knolls street was actually shot somewhere else and drove to that spot, Long Beach Police Chief Robert Luna said at a public safety town hall Tuesday night.

Now the victim is not cooperating with investigators to catch the shooter, Luna added.

In a departure from usual practice, Luna shared with the audience new details—including some about the victim—about what had been originally reported as a shooting in Bixby Knolls on Aug. 9.

“There is a ton of misinformation out there,” Luna told the audience in apparent frustration.

The meeting discussion focused primarily on the recent closure of Fire Station 9, but also had time carved out to talk about a seeming uptick in crime in the Bixby Knolls area, specifically the shooting and two robberies.

Luna blamed misinformation on social media as the cause for residents’ concerns and stated that crime was actually down 6.7% between January and July of this year. That decrease, along with previous years’ decreases, is “something to be proud of,” he said.

“It is nothing like it was, say, 20 years ago and even 10 years ago to what it is today,” Luna said.

In the Aug. 9 shooting, police originally told the public that a man was shot while sitting in his parked car near 45th Street and Atlantic Avenue. In the days after the shooting, the Post requested more information on the shooting twice and was told there was no new updates.

But Tuesday night, Luna took the opportunity to share new information with the audience.

“All the information that was coming out was that he was shot right in the area of 45th and Atlantic. That wasn’t true. He was shot somewhere north of there,” Luna said. “I’d like to tell you where he was shot, but you know what? He won’t tell us. He will not cooperate with us.”

He also noted the victim is on parole for using a gun and has been arrested three times. He is a known gang member who is frequently arrested, Luna’s Chief of Staff Commander Erik Herzog said Wednesday.

Herzog said it took investigators a while to determine the shooting did not happen in that specific area, which resulted in the misinformation.

Detectives still believe the victim was shot while he was in his car, but they don’t know where, Herzog said. Police did not receive any reports about shots fired in any area at that time, he said, and the victim did not have a gun on him when he was found.

“We think he was trying to drive away (after being shot),” Herzog said.

Luna said that he spoke out about the incident because he saw how upset that people were at the idea that a shooting occurred in a usually quiet area.

“I’m tired of people hammering us about shootings,” when many times victims are not cooperative, he said.

Luna blamed recent criminal justice reforms, which eased some penalties, with creating repeat offenders.

“What do you think this guy is gonna do after he gets out of the hospital when he doesn’t want to cooperate with us law enforcement?” Luna said.

The victim is now out of the hospital, Herzog said, and detectives have made multiple attempts to talk to him.

After noticing a “disturbing trend,” of repeat offenders committing violent crimes, Luna said his team is looking for ways to combat it. He said the commander of the investigations bureau, Robert Smith, with be meeting with the head of the District Attorney’s office in Long Beach soon to discuss about a dozen individuals that keep offending in Long Beach.

The meeting will focus on the suspects’ cases as examples, pointing out what processes let them back out on the streets and how the DA’s office might help prevent that in future cases, Herzog said.