Mass Shooting at MLK Day Event Injures 8

Shooting took place in Fort Pierce, Florida
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jan 17, 2023 12:07 AM CST
Mass Shooting at MLK Day Event Injures 8
Stock photo.   (Getty Images / Evgen_Prozhyrko)

Eight people were shot Monday during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day event in Florida's St. Lucie County. More than 1,000 people were attending the MLK Car Show and Family Fun Day at Ilous Ellis Park in Fort Pierce when shots rang out about 5:20pm, WPBF reports. One of the eight people injured, all of whom are adults, was in critical condition. Four others, including a child, received non-life-threatening injuries while fleeing the scene, WPTV reports. No suspects are yet in custody.

"It was mass chaos as you can imagine when shots rang out with, there were a thousand plus people here at the event, and as the shots rang out, people were just running in all directions," says a St. Lucie County chief deputy. Attendees helped those who had been hurt, including driving some of them to the hospital. "It sounds like from our initial investigation here on scene there was a disagreement of some sort between two parties, and unfortunately, they chose to resolve that with guns,” the chief deputy says. "It's really sad in a celebration of someone who represented peace and equality that a disagreement results in a use of guns and violence to solve that disagreement." (More Florida stories.)

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