A Saturday evening shooting in Kentucky left five people shot, including one person who died, according to officials.
Gov. Andy Beshear acknowledged reports of the violence in downtown Lexington while speaking nearby at the Kentucky Democratic Party’s Moving Forward Together event at the Hyatt Regency.
Video shared by Devine Carama, who leads the Lexington mayor’s youth gun violence reduction program, captured the moment gunfire erupted.
‘My heart is broken. This evening we had a shooting at the park with multiple victims and one fighting for his life. While trying to keep four young people covered and safe during the shooting, a person eight inches from me was shot tonight,’ the government official wrote in a caption accompanying the post.
At least 13 gunshots can be heard in the footage.
Carama described a chaotic scene, saying bystanders were ‘trying to help with CPR,’ while another person lifted a young victim ‘who got shot’ as emergency crews responded to several wounded people in real time.
‘This is not normal. We come together every year as a family and kick it on the Eastside and we haven’t had something like this happen, EVER,’ he wrote.
Lexington Police Chief Lawrence Weathers was also at the scene as investigators began working the case, LEX News reported.
Five people have been wounded, including one person who was killed, following a shooting in Lexington, Kentucky, on Saturday around 6.45pm. Police are seen convened near Charles Young Park, the scene of the shooting, just before sundown
‘To stop mass shootings, we have got to elect Democrats that will actually do something about it,’ Beshear said during his speech, hours after other shootings in Virginia and Michigan.
Chief Weathers said multiple children were among those shot in an update issued at the scene shortly thereafter.
He said a 4-year-old, a 14-year-old and two adults were shot around 6.45pm at Charles Young Park. All were taken to a hospital with non-life-threatening injuries.
The park was in the midst of an outdoor concert event slated for 6 to 8pm, the Lexington Herald Leader first reported.
It remains unclear whether a suspect was apprehended.
Weathers told reporters at the scene that he didn’t believe there was a threat to the public, the Herald Leader reported.
A Lexington Police Department spokesperson told Our News Outlet the investigation was still active around 10pm ET.
‘No further details are available at this time,’ they said.
Gov. Andy Beshear used the shooting to urge citizens to vote Democrat during a speech at the Hyatt Regency not far away
Police descended on the park, where there was reportedly an outdoor concert in place, after witnesses reported gunshots at 6.48pm, police said – adding that they did not believe there was any more threat to the public
The University of Kentucky HealthCare, meanwhile, reportedly sent an email to employees saying that it had responded to the ‘tragic shooting at Charles Young Park’ to provide care to ‘multiple patients.’
Police were filmed making a perimeter around the park with their cruisers before sundown.
Chief Weathers told reporters during his press conference: ‘If you know somebody who might be inclined to use a weapon, please do anything you can do to let us know before something happens. Please let us know.’
A Michigan mass shooting that took place on Friday left a 45-year-old man, a 40-year-old woman and a 16-year-old boy dead.
Suspected gunman Chad Hickman is also believed to have killed a 53-year-old man at a second home nearby and a 29-year-old woman who was found dead in a wooder area alongside Hickman, who turned the gun on himself, cops said.
A shooting at Virginia State University early Saturday injured five people, including a student, in an incident that involved ‘multiple suspects,’ according to the school. A 19-year-old suspect was arrested Saturday evening. The shooting remains under investigation.
