MIAMI, Jan. 17 (UPI) — Eight people were shot toward the end of a Martin Luther King Jr. Day celebration at a park in Miami, sending six to the hospital with one listed in critical condition.
Two people were being questioned about the shooting at Miami’s Memorial Park as a festival for Martin Luther King Jr. Day after the city’s annual parade was wrapping up.
Police said they did not yet have an explanation for why gunfire broke out and sent people stampeding out of the park at the close of the day’s celebration, a Miami tradition since the 1970s.
“It was good until you had these idiots out there shooting,” Terrell Dandy, who was at the park when the shooting happened, told The Miami Herald. “It was just a bunch of commotion.”
Around 3:40 p.m., multiple agencies responded to a call of gunshots at the park and people rushed from the scene.
Eight people between the ages of 11 and 30 were shot, two of whom were grazed and treated at the scene. Six others were hospitalized with a range of injuries, with one shot in the back, requiring two surgeries and remaining in critical condition.
Around 5:30 p.m. police said two individuals connected to the shooting were being detained and questioned. Police also have two firearms they believe are linked to the shooting, but say not much else is known.
“The nature of the shooting, we don’t have information on that right now,” said Miami-Beach Police Detective Marjorie Eloi.
