4 shot at Northside car wash

Reports: Victims were driven to hospital in private vehicles

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Two men and two women were shot Sunday night at a car wash on Moncrief Road on the Northside, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.

Police responded to the intersection of West 35th Street and Moncrief around 9:40 p.m. found shell casings in the middle of the road and reports that four victims were taken by private vehicles to UF Health Jacksonville.

"None of the injuries are life-threatening. At this particular time, no witnesses, no suspect information, no suspect vehicle information," said Sgt. Bobby Lyle, of the Jacksonville's Sheriff's Office.

According to the police report, the victims were outside Mitchell's Car Wash when witnesses heard up to 20 gunshots. Other witnesses reported they were in a large crowd when they heard shots and ran.

Police were knocking on neighbors' doors to see if anyone heard or saw anything. A detective was at the hospital interviewing the victims but was not able to get much information, Lyle said.

Car wash manager Willie Turner says what happened is not a new problem in the area.

"Once we close the car wash down, there should be nobody up here causing nothing like that up here," Turner said. "I was told there was cars and people hanging around up here inside the lot when they shouldn't have been up here 'cause it's private property."

A pool across the way from the scene of the shooting will be open in a few weeks and will be packed with children on summer vacation. Also part of Clanzel Brown Park is a Jacksonville-run senior center, which coordinator Carl Jackson says is one of the brightest spots of the neighborhood.

"It makes me feel sad, because that's one of the reasons why this center probably is not full because the seniors are probably afraid to come out," Jackson said.

It's a concern echoed by James Glover, who used to coach playground softball and baseball in the neighborhood when it was a much safer place to live.

"I mean, nowadays if you step on a guy's tennis shoes, he wants shoot you or get mad and wants to jump on you," Glover said. "It doesn't make any -- it's just bad."

"It's a scare factor, you know, they're scared of retribution from who's done it or his friends, and that's what they're worried about," Glover added. "I myself, I see it and I'm in it, near it, I'm going to tell it."

For residents like Flavia Singleton, not a day goes by she doesn't worry about her 7-year-old daughter.

"That could be anybody's child, somebody's daddy," Singleton said. "All I can say is stay in the house."

Donald Foy, president of MAD DADS, Men Against Destruction Defending Against Drugs and Social Disorder, says neighborhoods like this one simply will not improve until people are willing to come forward.

"We've got to break the code of silence to remove these individuals for our community," Foy said. ""Sometimes we have to go in and kind of give 'em a little push to let them know that other people care about them in this community for them to take their stand, but I'm believing somebody's going to take a stand."

Anyone with any information about the quadruple shooting is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 866-845-TIPS.


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