JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – More than 100 people were attending three women's 21st birthday party at a city park Sunday night when at least two gunmen opened fire, sending nine adults and an 18-month-old girl to the hospital and taking the life of an unborn boy.
Two of the victims were pregnant women. They, along with four other women and three men, were expected to recover. The toddler remained in critical condition Monday at Shands Jacksonville Medical Center.
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The shooting occurred about 8:45 p.m. at J.S. Johnson Community Center in the 300 block of Spruce Street, not far from the Prime Osborn Convention Center. Police said the organizer of the party had not applied for, or received, a permit from the city to hold a party, which was advertised on a social media website.
"It sounded like an automatic weapon. Sounded like it, just, 'Pow pow pow pow,'" said a 67-year-old witness who did not want to be identified. "You should have seen them. I know somebody got shot because I saw them kids running. They were coming and running into cars, man. Oh man, that was the worst scene I've ever seen."
Police said they have questioned more than 40 of the people who were at the party when the gunfire broke out, and they are urging others who fled before officers arrived to come forward and help find those who fired the shots.
"This is the kind of case that needs the public's cooperation," Jacksonville Sheriff's Office Chief Tom Hackney said Monday morning. "There's a whole lot of people who were out at this party last night who saw what happened, who saw these multiple shooters."
Dozens of patrol officers, detectives and one the department's top crime analysts were all actively working the case.
"I need to know who was the shooter in this case, and I need somebody who saw that to come forward and tell us exactly who that person was," Hackney said.
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Police said patrol officers saw the large, unpermitted gathering at the park and were nearby, formulating a plan to break up the crowd when the 911 calls began coming in about the shooting.
"You've got a whole lot of people shot in difference places, where they claim they were in the park at the time. It makes me think it could be random," Hackney said.
Sheriff John Rutherford went to the scene Sunday night to stress the importance of the public's cooperation in quickly finding the gunmen. He said at least two gunmen were firing at each other and didn't care who was in the way.
"We are not going to tolerate this kind of violence in this community," Rutherford said.
Cynthia Whigham has a lot of questions a day after the mass shooting that injured her brother, Julian, and her great-niece, the 18-month-old girl still at Shands.
"It's just a birthday party. Why were guns at a birthday party," Whigham said. "Shock, and thinking how senseless someone could take a young person's life so frivolously and not care."
"We're praying not only for our family, but for all the victims, even the shooters, that they will either turn themselves in or rethink their way of living," Whigham said.
Anyone with any information that could help police is asked to call Crime Stoppers at 866-845-TIPS.