‘Two groups of people who were beefing, and they opened fire on people with a crowd around,’ a police spokesman said.
A 24-year-old man is dead and a 55-year-old woman is in critical condition after two groups of people arguing from on opposite sides of the street opened fire on each other with a crowd of people around in Nashville, Tennessee.
A crowd had gathered around Jefferson Street on Saturday to watch a morning parade celebrating Tennessee State University’s (TSU) homecoming football game later that afternoon at the Nissan Stadium.
But just before TSU’s game with Eastern Illinois University was to start, suspects with handguns opened fire at Jefferson St & 27th Ave N. around 5 p.m. local time, the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department (MNPD) said.
“Some of the individuals are known to us, who are at the hospital, due to some prior interaction with the police. So we are confident that things are beginning to come together,” spokesperson Don Aaron said.
“This is a very difficult scenario for our city in that just a handful of people, a very small number of people, besmirched the celebration of activities for Tennessee State University taking place today,” he added. “As you know, the parade took place this morning, went off without a hitch. A lot of people had begun to leave this area to go down to the football game.”
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Aaron said, “About 20 minutes before this had occurred, Jefferson St had opened because the crowd had thinned out, the parking lots were still full, but the roadway was safe enough to allow vehicles.”
“Two groups of people who were beefing, and they opened fire on people with a crowd around,” he said.
“This type of gun violence has just got to stop. We would have never expected that this would have happened here with all of the law enforcement, all of the public safety people here, the fire department. We would have never expected this to have taken place. There were police officers everywhere,” he said.
In addition to the 24-year-old deceased and the critically injured woman, eight other victims were sent to local hospitals with gunshot wounds.
“The scene is secure,” the police department said in an update on X. “A total of 10 gunshot wound victims are now at area hospitals.”
Three of the 10 victims are juveniles, being treated at Vanderbilt Children’s Hospital. They are in non-critical condition.
The shell casings that have been found show that gunfire came from two sides of the street, police said. The homicide investigation is ongoing.
Amid initial media reports that the university had sent a text warning to staff and students that there was an active shooter on campus, TSU said in a statement, “The shooting did not occur on campus.”
It said that there were two separate incidents; the shooting near the Jefferson Street Missionary Baptist Church and the House of Legends, which is “several blocks away from campus,” and a separate incident at the stadium, where three individuals were injured in a parking lot fight that was initially reported as a shooting as the crowd began to run away from the fight after something that sounded like a gunshot was heard.
