JACKSONVILLE BEACH, Fla. — Jacksonville Beach police released more information Monday about a shooting over the weekend that resulted in five people shot. Police Chief Gene Paul Smith said one of the people wounded was a person driving in the area, “and was not involved in the incident at all ...”
Smith also said advertising for the “takeover” links it to a similar event in Jacksonville last week. “One of the same organizers of the takeover on February 21; they are possibly linked to the Avenues Mall takeover,” he said.
The Feb. 14 takeover at Avenues Mall ended with shots ringing out and the crowd scattering. No one was injured and Jacksonville police arrested one person.
All five victims in Saturday’s Jacksonville Beach shooting sustained non-life threatening injuries, police said.
Smith, who has been dealing with similar takeover events in Jacksonville Beach during the last few years, said his department was prepared Saturday.
“At 7 p.m., only about 130 participants had showed up, there were no problems all day and small crowds,” Smith said. “We had been tracking them all day with drones and I had over two dozen officers assigned in and around the pier. I was also there on the walkovers making contact with some of the participants and monitoring them. Literally we stayed with them at the pier for three hours, and it was a non-event.
That change when the sun went down. “Just as the last rays of light went down over the horizon, the fights started. Fortunately, we were just preparing to start clearing the area, and arranging our officers to force them south and west out of the area, about 30 to 35 officers. It was very effective and it only took us about 15 minutes to clear them all the way south of Beach Boulevard,” Smith stated in a news release.
Smith said he was patrolling the area, “heading south on Second Street around McDonald’s, gun shots occurred. We had about 20 officers between Beach Boulevard and 2nd Street Including myself and we had about eight actually in the McDonald’s parking lot,” he said.
Smith said numerous officers saw the fights and were no more than “half a parking lot away” from the actual shooting once it occurred. “The whole crowd started running,” he said.
Smith said police found three guns in the area that were discarded on the ground and a fourth gun on a person who is detained close by. Police also took two guns off of two people earlier in the day, he said.
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