A homecoming celebration turned deadly in Lexington, Miss., as a two men opened fire into a crowd –injuring 8 people and killing three.
Two 19-year-olds and one 25-year-old were killed when a spray of bullets riddled the crowd of hundreds that gathered following the Holmes County Consolidated School’s homecoming football game that happened earlier Friday evening.
Eight injured victims were taken to area hospitals – including some who were airlifted to capital city Jackson, which is 60 miles south of the site of the shooting, according to The Associated Press.
At about 12:30 A.M. Saturday, an argument boiled over and at least two young men opened fire into the crowd that consisted of as many as 300 young people, Holmes County Sheriff Willie March told the outlet.
“The football team had won the homecoming game and people wanted to go and celebrate the win,” Holmes County Sheriff Willie March told the Clarion Ledger, adding, “but others didn’t have that same intention.”
“It was chaos, to tell you the truth. The shooting just started and people started running,” March told the outlet, adding that anywhere between 200 to 300 people were gathered at the outdoor trail to celebrate.
The school did not participate in organizing the rally Sheriff March told the Clarion Ledger.
A co-owner of the Indian Creek Trail, whose nephew was amongst those injured, told WAPT that he rented it out for a party – which was set to end just before the shooting took place.
“We had 30 minutes 30 minutes to go, and I was about to comment, ‘It won’t be long’, and that’s when I heard the shots going off,” Joe Johnson told the outlet.
Johnson said events at Indian Creek Trail usually have security, which had previously confiscated weapons, but this time they got through. The shots sounded “like a machine gun”, he told WAPT.
Investigators believe the shooter or shooters used a gun outfitted with a “switch”, which turns a semi-automatic pistol into a selective fire machine pistol, the Clarion Ledger reported.
“You’ve got so much innocent blood that’s being shed, that’s what hurts me,” Johnson lamented.
“I’m an ordained minister and I’d just like to be able to talk to our young people and tell them, you know, to love one another.”
Of his injured nephew and his son who was also present, Johnson said, “It was just the goodness of God that they didn’t get shot up.”
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