CNN
—
Audio from the 911 calls details the panic that developed during a Memorial Day shooting that injured nine people near South Florida’s bustling Hollywood Beach Broadwalk, an incident in which six of the shooting victims they were still hospitalized Tuesday.
The Monday night shooting, which police believe began as an altercation between two groups, sent people running down a crowded sidewalk and jumping onto nearby sand, video from the beach camera shows. live city.
Multiple callers reported hearing gunshots and seeing people on the ground in the 911 audio that Hollywood police released Tuesday.
“Come to Hollywood Beach,” a 911 caller is heard saying. “Please, on the beach. They are shooting here.”
The caller told dispatcher that someone near him on the beach was “hit.”
Another caller reported hearing rapid gunshots and running to a nearby hotel, where he said people were taking cover against a wall. She described hearing three rapid shots, a pause, and then two more shots, according to the recording.
One person told a dispatcher that they did not see a shooter, but that two people had been shot. “Two people were hit at this time. Two people were beaten, a lady and another lady were beaten,” she said.
Four minors between the ages of 1 and 17 and five adults between the ages of 25 and 65 were injured in the shooting, police said. Two men believed to be connected to the shooting have been arrested on weapons charges, and investigators are looking for at least three other people, Hollywood police said.
The Memorial Day shooting was one of at least 264 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the victim. shooter.
As of Tuesday afternoon, four minors and two adults were still hospitalized, Hollywood Beach police spokeswoman Deanna Bettineschi said, describing their condition as stable.
Hollywood is about 20 miles north of Miami and is home to Hollywood Beach, a popular tourist destination. The shooting happened near Johnson Street and North Broadwalk, a bustling palm-lined pedestrian promenade adjacent to the beach lined with restaurants and shops.
Officers detained several people Monday after the shooting, leading to the arrest of two men on weapons charges, Bettineschi said.
The two arrested were Keshawn Stewart and Morgan Deslouches, both 18, according to police affidavits. Both were arrested in connection with the shooting after firearms were found in their backpacks, according to the documents, which do not charge them with shooting.
A witness who was working in the area reported seeing the shooting and an argument that led up to it, an affidavit says. An “unidentified shooting suspect” he approached Stewart and placed a handgun inside his backpack, the witness said, according to the affidavit.
The witness took cell phone photos of the unidentified suspect and Stewart and turned them over to police, the document says.
Police later took Stewart into custody and found a loaded semi-automatic pistol in her bag, according to the document. Stewart did not have a permit and was arrested on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon, according to the affidavit.
A handgun was also found in a backpack Deslouches was carrying after an officer approached him and a group of men matching descriptions provided by witnesses, according to an affidavit. The weapon’s serial number “appeared to have been tampered with and was illegible at the time of our investigation,” the document says.
Police discovered that the firearm had been stolen from Miami-Dade County, according to the affidavit.
Deslouches was arrested on charges of burglary: grand theft of firearms, carrying a concealed weapon and altering or removing a firearm’s serial number, according to the affidavit.
Hollywood police have dozens of officers assigned to the beach over holiday weekends, allowing for an immediate response, Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy told reporters Tuesday. Many of the 911 callers also described seeing officers arrive on the scene.
Levy was confident police would arrest the other three people investigators were still looking for in connection with the shooting, he said.
“When you do something like this in broad daylight, with CCTV cameras up and down our boardwalk, you will be identified, caught and brought to justice,” Levy said. “We will not tolerate this type of behavior.”
CNN spoke to a tourist who was on the beach Monday when gunfire erupted.
“We were sitting in these chairs, the three of us, and then we heard the shots,” Paige Simmons told CNN’s Carlos Suárez. “My mom told me: ‘Go into the hotel,’ so we ran. We had the door open so we ran in and we were looking out the window and everyone was scattering, running, ducking, trying to find a place to hide.”
