Florida mass shooting leaves 10 injured, 2 in critical condition

what I’m gonna tell you is the information that we know as of one minute ago. Um um if you’ve been down on the, up in the third floor and you can see the activity that’s going on. These things are constantly changing and the information that I’m getting ready to give you change like five minutes ago as to what we originally put out *** press conference. So please, I know you, you hear people say that all the time, but this is certainly preliminary and subject to change. So um, at about 3 43 this afternoon, the Lakeland Police Department started to receive multiple phone calls of *** shooting that had just occurred in the 900 block of North Iowa at Iowa and plum. Within one minute we had four officers on the scene. They located three victims who were shot on the scene and uh, several victims, the officers were told had been transported via personal vehicle and were no longer on the scene to Lakeland Regional Health. Three of the victims were transported, as I said by emergency medical services. Um They were all adult males Described as between the ages of 20 and 35. We have to, that is of the last report are in critical condition, One is in surgery and the other is either in surgery or headed to surgery and one was uh shot in the abdomen and the other one was shot in the face or the jaw area. Um The other Eight victims have non life threatening injuries. So we initially notified you guys, we thought we had nine victims. Now we had another one as we were at the hospital, another gentleman walked up and presented himself and he’s got *** Ricochet Williams. So now we’re up to 10 victims. This is what I can tell you that we’ve learned so far. Um, apparently there was *** dark colored Nissan four door pulled up, uh, didn’t slow down. I just looked at some ring cellphone video 30 seconds before I came down here, there was *** four door Nissan and I’m gonna show you *** photograph of that we, that we took off the site. I know it’s blurry. We will certainly try to get you an additional photographs as we can and better photographs and something that’s not as blurry. Um, but it is *** four door, dark blue Nissan with dark tinted windows and *** temporary tag. Um, the vehicle slowed, it did not stop and the four windows went down. It appears it was occupied by four shooters in the vehicle and they started firing from all four windows of the vehicle and shooting males on both sides of the street. Obviously after the shooting, the vehicle left at *** high rate of speed northbound on Iowa Avenue made an eastbound term memorial boulevard and we are actively searching for that vehicle. Now. Um, we have reason to believe that this was *** targeted event, that it was not *** random act. Um, we did locate *** quantity of marijuana at the scene, which would indicate that obviously there were some narcotic sales or sales of marijuana going on at the time. Um, and whether that is significant or related to this, it’s unknown right now that detectives are still trying to get through that process. Um, we will be out most of the night trying to figure out who these individuals are in the vehicle, trying to locate the vehicle. Certainly, we ask for the public’s help if they see this vehicle and again, we’ll try to provide you *** digital photograph of that so we can kind of improve the quality of that as best we can. Um, we have about 25 Uniform Patrol officers at one time were at the scene and about 15 detectives. This is something that Does’t happen in Lakeland. I’ve been here 34 years and I can tell you, I have never worked an event where this many people have been shot at one time ever. Um, it actually um, saddened me to some extent that, uh, you know, we consider ourselves to be *** small town, some, you know, situated between Tampa and Orlando. And when stuff like this happens, you know, it just kind of hits home with me *** little bit that, uh, you know, maybe we’re not *** small town anymore and it actually is pretty sad. So with that, to the extent I can, I will answer any questions that you guys have. So we always like to ask, is there *** threat to the public? Is that difficult to say when it’s you think *** targeted incident, Although you don’t have any suspects arrested, What would you say to people who might be worried for their safety at this house? Sure, good question. Um, we don’t, we don’t believe there’s any reason that the public would need to be um concerned right now. We think that the individuals in the car shot at and shot who they wanted to shoot it was an intentional act. It certainly wasn’t *** random, just *** drive by shooting. And like I said, things like this just don’t happen in Lakeland. But today, this evening did, which is disappointing. We did not, we did not have *** second scene. That’s not correct. And I mean, no, I don’t think there is. Um, you know, it’s, it’s it’s *** random that and my mother said it’s disappointed. I’ve been disappointing. Um, I’ve been doing this for, I’ll start my 35th year, uh, Wednesday february 1st and uh, I’ve never seen anything like this before. I don’t know if it’s as *** result of uh, I don’t, I don’t know what is as *** result of, I don’t know, we’ll figure that out, but I don’t, I don’t suspect there’s *** drug, we know this is the first incident happened Now, certainly we’re gonna be on heightened alert the rest of the evening, you know, for some sort of retaliatory at if that if that comes and, you know, then maybe we can have that conversation. These *** start of something. Certainly our intelligence folks are working on monitoring different aspects of the, uh, the social media world to find out what the chatter is as all police departments across this country. So that we haven’t seen anything like that, neighbors out there tell us that they see traffic going to that apartment complex all the time, drug related. That area that was known. Police Department leading up to today. It is an area that’s known. It’s ***, uh, it’s *** challenge neighborhood. It’s rental *** lot of rental properties in there. So it’s an area that we’ve, we’ve paid quite *** quite *** lot of attention to over the past years. Um, but it’s tough. I mean, it’s ***, it’s ***, it’s *** tough neighborhood and like say there are some challenges and the neighbors would not be incorrect. We’re aware of that and we have put *** lot of resources and manpower into trying to fix that and will continue to do. So I think it’s too early. Um, certainly there’s some chatter online about that and we’re certainly cognitive that and aware of that. So I don’t wanna, I don’t want to dismiss that as *** possibility. And certainly maybe at the scene, I don’t know if we recovered any weapons at the scene. I don’t think we recovered weapons at the scene. What I can tell you is is we did locate *** rifle in one of the vehicles at the hospital that one of the personal vehicles that was used to transport one of the victims in plain view. So that’s interesting back after this. Good question. I don’t know that. We’re still trying to figure that out. So, the question is you just ask, Yeah, yeah, no, that’s fine. We don’t know that. That’s certainly *** possibility. I don’t want to say definitively, no, and I don’t want to say definitively, yes. It’s certainly within the realm of possibilities. Um, some are cooperating, some are not cooperating, Some, uh, that have non life threatening injuries, have decided that they don’t have any idea why this happened. Um, and some are telling us everything that they know about it, we believe. So about that time. Did you have any kids in the neighborhood? There was *** school bus that had just dropped the Children off in the neighborhood probably *** minute before the shooting occurred. So I don’t know if there’s Children. I don’t have any indication that those kids were in the neighborhood. They had dispersed and gone wherever they live at the time. So, but school bus had on the ring video, you can see *** school bus dropping on the video that we’ve seen dropping the kids off and then shortly after that the car comes through and the shooting occurs terrible. Absolutely horrific. So I say, I’ve been doing this for 34 years starting 35th year and I’ve never, ever seen, Not in Lakeland. This just doesn’t happen in Lakeland, but today it didn’t. So, which is disappointing. Um, with the block from florida Avenue is *** block from memorial boulevard and maybe maybe *** couple of blocks from florida is *** main thoroughfare. Yeah, massachusetts. Yes, yeah, yeah. Major thoroughfare. Yeah, I’m sorry. This one want to be accurate on my answer. Um, uh, we certainly will have extra patrols out tonight and we’ll have, like I said, we’ve got 15 detectives that will work all night long if that’s what it takes to figure this out. We certainly would like to, uh, identify the folks that read that vehicle. We’d like to locate that vehicle. Um, for those of you that know me and I know quite *** few of you that are sitting around here. You know, this is not typical for us. We typically don’t call *** press conference at seven o’clock at night. I mean, you’ve been following us for *** long time. Many press conferences and we called at seven o’clock on *** monday night. So we’re taking this very seriously. Um, um, and that’s why I’m standing up here in front of you today because we want to locate this vehicle and locate the folks that were in that vehicle. Um, it’s very important that we, we do both of those. Sure, at some point, we will get you some video. As I said, I was just, I looked at *** ring video 30 seconds before I walked down here and that was the first video I saw. So let me give my detectives some time to digest that. And we will certainly get you out, Robin. We’ll put it in *** drop box and we’ll certainly, I don’t know if it’ll be tonight, but we will we will get that to you as quick as we can get it to you. So, and I apologize for the quality of the video, the photograph, that’s the best we can come up with right now. So, and we tried two or three different things. So this, trust me, the other ones look much worse than this one. So I know it’s early. We don’t know the exact details of what went on. But we did have *** situation today where legislation was introduced that would allow um, permanently carrying concealed weapons. Um, can you talk about that in relation to this incident? Like this would make it harder for your officers to investigate? Yeah, I could talk about it. I don’t want to I understand your question, but I let the legislators legislate and I’ll be the police chief for today. So we’ll just live with that. So any indication about how many there are the process of doing that. I can tell you *** lot. So we’ve, we’ve identified at least two different calibers at least to 23 which is *** rifle round and *** nine millimeter. So there may be other calibers as well. So the victims involved, uh, there they do, they were sitting outside on the sides of each side of the roadway. Um, um, and we will have to find out exactly why they were sitting out there. Uh, we did locate *** quantity of marijuana that was, I think it was in the, somewhere on the roadway that was secret was hidden. Um, um, so I would suspect I probably have *** pretty good idea what some of them were doing. I’m not saying all of them, but there was probably some of that going on. Um, but you know, some may have just been out enjoying the evening as well. So both sides of the street, they’re doing that. Now they may be able to establish that relationship between, I don’t know, it’s, uh, they’re still in the process of, obviously the first priority was to get them treated and then once we can get them save lives and treated and get an interview with them, find out that they live in the area where they’re visiting, you know, what while they were there. So to the extent they’ll tell us both sides of the street indication is that this was some kind of drug situation. I think it has some, some aspects of that. Yeah, I don’t know that all the folks that were shot were that way and I don’t want to characterize that because I don’t know. Um, I do find it interesting that there’s *** felony amount of marijuana located there and um so you know that’s but we can we can draw some some conclusions but it’s still *** little bit early yet. So yeah, well this may be way too soon to tell. But I mean gun violence in general, do you guys have *** solution to preventing these and stopping these kind of shootings? I’m being very careful with my answer. Um there are there are things that that have been tried all over the country and if I had *** solution to it, I probably wouldn’t be standing here. I would sell it to every police chief in the nation and we would all uh implement that. So uh I don’t think there’s *** one size fits all. Maybe what works in Lakeland may not work in new york. It may not work in boston, but it works here in Lakeland. So we have *** very good police department here. We have guys that gals that work very hard to keep the streets safe in the city safe and we have *** very safe city. That’s why this is so um shocking and jarring. I guess for me personally because like I said, I witnessed anything to this extent this magnitude. Now some of the individual minor there ricochets and they’re you know, they’re they’re they’re not serious injuries but anytime you have that many rounds fired and that many people that were in jeopardy and the kids are, I mean who knows where some of those rifle rounds are going. I mean they you know we made not ever be able to locate exactly what how many houses all these rifle rounds went through. So we’re gonna make every attempt. So um that’s that’s the concerning part for me is that uh you know I know how hard that all these guys and gals who put this uniform on every day, not just in Lakeland but all all over come to work every day with the the idea of keeping everybody safe and when something like this happens, it kind of uh is *** jarring reminder that you know um this is *** serious business, You know and people can get hurt and officers can get hurt and you know obviously we had 10 people today. I don’t know if this was reported, but one of the neighbors said that he heard three shots at that same location yesterday. I was your real I don’t know. I haven’t haven’t heard that the first time I’ve heard that. That’s that’s certainly he could have reported if he reported it. We can certainly let you know that. So I’m not aware of that. So uh yeah they could have could have been caught in the crossfire. They could have been you know just randomly sitting out enjoying the evening and you know, we don’t know yet we’re still trying to sort through all that. So so

‘It was an intentional act’: Lakeland mass shooting leaves 10 injured, 2 in critical condition

Updated: 6:32 AM EST Jan 31, 2023

Video above: Full press conference from Lakeland policeAt least 10 people have been shot in Lakeland, which is located outside of Tampa, Monday.Police are investigating the shooting that happened near Iowa North and Plum Street at about 3:43 p.m.Your neighborhood: Local coverage from WPBF 25 NewsTwo men have critical injuries, and eight people have non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.Of those in critical condition, one person was shot in the abdomen, and the other person was shot in the face, police said. One person is in surgery, and the other person is either in surgery or headed to surgery.Some victims are cooperating, and others aren’t.A dark-colored vehicle slowed but didn’t stop before all four windows went down, and the shooting began from all sides, according to police.Marijuana was found at the scene, and law enforcement believes the sale of narcotics may have played a role in the shooting.Follow us on social: Facebook | Twitter | InstagramTaylor noted that police believe there isn’t a threat to the area at this time, but there will still be extra patrols in the area overnight Monday into Tuesday.”It was an intentional act,” Lakeland Police Chief Sammy Taylor said. Aerial footage shows the scene Monday eveningAt least two different caliber weapons have been identified.Police said a school bus had dropped children off in the neighborhood about a minute before the shooting occurred.This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.

LAKELAND, Fla. —

Video above: Full press conference from Lakeland police

At least 10 people have been shot in Lakeland, which is located outside of Tampa, Monday.

Police are investigating the shooting that happened near Iowa North and Plum Street at about 3:43 p.m.

Your neighborhood: Local coverage from WPBF 25 News

Two men have critical injuries, and eight people have non-life-threatening injuries, according to police.

Of those in critical condition, one person was shot in the abdomen, and the other person was shot in the face, police said. One person is in surgery, and the other person is either in surgery or headed to surgery.

Some victims are cooperating, and others aren’t.

A dark-colored vehicle slowed but didn’t stop before all four windows went down, and the shooting began from all sides, according to police.

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Marijuana was found at the scene, and law enforcement believes the sale of narcotics may have played a role in the shooting.

Follow us on social: Facebook | Twitter | Instagram

Taylor noted that police believe there isn’t a threat to the area at this time, but there will still be extra patrols in the area overnight Monday into Tuesday.

“It was an intentional act,” Lakeland Police Chief Sammy Taylor said.

Aerial footage shows the scene Monday evening

At least two different caliber weapons have been identified.

Police said a school bus had dropped children off in the neighborhood about a minute before the shooting occurred.

This is a developing story and will be updated as information becomes available.