Audio of 911 calls detail panic that unfolded during a Memorial Day shooting that injured nine people near South Florida’s bustling Hollywood Beach Broadwalk – an incident in which six of the gunshot victims still were hospitalized Tuesday.
Monday evening’s shooting, which police believe began as an altercation between two groups, sent people running down a crowded sidewalk and jumping into the nearby sand, video from the city’s beach camera live feeds shows.
Several callers reported hearing gunshots and seeing people on the ground in 911 audio that Hollywood police released Tuesday.
“Come to Hollywood Beach,” one 911 caller is heard saying. “Please, on the beach. They are shooting out here.”
The caller told the dispatcher that someone near him on the beach was “hit.”
Another caller reported hearing rapid gunshots and running into a nearby hotel, where she said people were taking cover against a wall. She described hearing three rapid shots, a pause, then two more gunshots, according to the recording.
One person told a dispatcher that he did not see a shooter, but two people had been shot. “Two people got hit right now. Two people got hit – a lady and another lady got hit,” he said.
Four minors between the ages of 1 and 17 and five adults between the ages of 25 and 65 were injured in the shooting, police said. Two men believed to be connected to the shooting were arrested on weapons charges, and investigators are looking for at least three other people, Hollywood police have said.
The Memorial Day shooting was one of at least 264 mass shootings in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as one in which at least four people are shot, excluding the shooter.
As of Tuesday afternoon, four minors and two adults still were hospitalized, said Hollywood Beach police spokesperson Deanna Bettineschi, who described their condition as stable.
Hollywood is about 20 miles north of Miami and is home to Hollywood Beach, a popular tourist destination. The shooting happened near Johnson Street and North Broadwalk, a bustling palm-tree-lined pedestrian walkway adjacent to the beach featuring restaurants and shops.
Affidavits detail accusations against 2 who were arrested
Officers detained multiple people Monday after the shooting, which led to the arrests of two men on weapons charges, Bettineschi said.
The two arrested were Keshawn Stewart and Morgan Deslouches, both 18, according to police affidavits. Both were arrested in connection with the shooting after being found with firearms in their backpacks, according to the documents, which do not accuse them of firing any shots.
A witness who was working in the area reported seeing the shooting and an argument leading to it, one affidavit says. An “unidentified shooting suspect” approached Stewart and placed a handgun inside his backpack, the witness said, according to the affidavit.
The witness snapped cell phone photographs of the unidentified suspect and Stewart and gave them to police, the document says.
Police later detained Stewart and found a loaded semi-automatic handgun in his bag, according to the document. Stewart did not have a permit and he was arrested on a charge of carrying a concealed weapon, the affidavit said.
A pistol was also found in a backpack that Deslouches was carrying after an officer approached him and a group of males that matched a descriptions provided by witnesses, according to an affidavit. The gun’s serial number “appeared to be tampered with and was unreadable at the time of our investigation,” the document says.
Police found that the firearm had been stolen out of Miami-Dade County, the affidavit said.
Deslouches was arrested on charges of larceny-grand theft of firearm, carrying a concealed weapon, and altering or removing a firearm’s serial number, the affidavit said.
Hollywood police have dozens of officers assigned to the beach on busy holiday weekends, which allowed for an immediate response, Hollywood Mayor Josh Levy told reporters Tuesday. Many of the 911 callers had also described seeing officers arriving at the scene.
Levy was confident that police would apprehend the three other people investigators still were looking for in connection with the shooting, he said.
“When you do something like this in broad daylight, with CCTV cameras up and down our boardwalk, you will be identified, and you will be caught and brought to justice,” Levy said. “We will not tolerate this kind of behavior.”
CNN spoke with a tourist who was on the beach Monday when gunfire broke out.
“We were sitting in these chairs, the three of us, and then we heard the gunshots,” Paige Simmons told CNN’s Carlos Suarez. “My mom was like, ‘Get in the hotel,’ so we ran. We had the door propped open, so we ran in there and we were looking out the window and everyone scattering, running, ducking, trying to find place places to hide.”
CNN’s Pamela Kirkland, Rebekah Riess and Andy Rose contributed to this report.
