5 suspects have now been arrested in the Florida shooting along Hollywood Beach that injured 9
Five suspects in the Memorial Day shooting that injured nine people near South Florida’s bustling Hollywood Beach Broadwalk are now in custody, police announced Monday.
The shooting last week began as a fight between two groups that ended with gunfire, wounding innocent bystanders on the crowded boardwalk, including a 1-year-old child, according to Hollywood police.
Two people under the age of 18 are among the suspects arrested in the shooting.
A 15-year-old boy, a 16-year-old boy and an 18-year-old man were all charged with one count of attempted murder in the first degree, eight counts of attempted second degree murder and one count of carrying a concealed firearm, according to a police.
The three new arrests come in addition to two others who were arrested in the immediate aftermath of the shooting.
The May 29 shooting sent people running down a crowded palm-tree lined walkway that straddles the beach. Video of the incident showed people jumping into the nearby sand as officers responded to the scene.
Witnesses told officers that two large groups of people had gotten into an argument, and one group opened fire on the other, according to a police affidavit.
The document states several people from one group “produced firearms and began firing indiscriminately not only at group 2, but as well as in the direction of the innocent bystanders who were subsequently caught in the crossfire.”
Two of the people who were wounded were part of one of the groups, including one person who was shot several times in the torso and the other in the right calf, the affidavit said.
The seven other victims who were injured in the violence were innocent bystanders, authorities said in the affidavit.
As of Monday, eight of the nine injured victims have been released from the hospital. One person remains hospitalized in stable condition, Hollywood Police Chief Chris O’Brien said in a news conference.
Officers who responded to the scene detained multiple people after the shooting, which led to the arrest of two men on weapons charges, police said. But the search continued for others involved.
In the hours that followed, police obtained surveillance video that captured the altercation and authorities released photos of another three suspects to ask for the public’s help identifying them. Police received tips from the public and all three were detained by Monday.
“Nobody wins when crime takes place in any community in the United States, or, of course, here in the city of Hollywood,” Mayor Josh Levy said in a press conference a week after the shooting, praising the police department’s work at identifying and arresting the suspects.