LAUDERHILL, Fla. – Police investigated Monday morning after a 9-year-old boy was wounded in a shooting in Lauderhill. A witness said the gunfire broke out in a dispute over parking outside at a Fresco y Más store.
It happened at around 10:30 a.m. outside of the grocery store at 1531 N. State Road 7, within the Lauderhill Mall.
Lt. Antonio Gonzalez, a Lauderhill Police Department spokesperson, said the boy was taken to Broward Health Medical Center and was expected to survive. Police said he was shot in the ankle.
“He’s just devastated,” Taraniesha Jackson, the victim’s mother, told Local 10 News Monday afternoon. “We just didn’t think, going to the store, that this would happen.”
Gonzalez said the shooting happened amid an altercation within the mall parking lot.
“It’s very scary. Like going to the store, everybody is literally in here getting the same thing — stuff for the holidays, barbecue chicken,” witness Katrina Hamilton said. “His mom was panicking. His two sisters — they (were) freaked out, like past freaked out. I was doing my best to keep them calm.”
She said, “blood was just everywhere.”
Hamilton, a nurse, jumped into action after she stumbled over the victim as people ran from the gunfire.
“I (saw) blood rushing out his feet so fast so I tried to wrap up and (use) compression until the paramedics (got) here so he (didn’t) bleed out,” she said.
Gonzalez said officers determined the boy and his family “were not involved in the initial altercation” and that the “investigation remains open and active.
Hamilton said that the dispute began during an argument between a younger man and an older woman over someone parking in a fire lane.
“They (were) arguing about the ‘no parking’ fire zone,” she said. “I guess both of them tried to park, they collided a little bit together. A (few) scratches on the cars so she was talking about her scratches on the car. The guy was so upset and he’s jumping out (of) the car. He was like ‘I’ll shoot this F up!’ and stuff like that.””
Jackson said she’s grateful for Hamilton.
“I just thank God for the nurse that was there,” she said.
Police said they’ve identified three vehicles involved and said that the driver of one of the vehicles returned to the scene “and is cooperating with detectives.”
Anyone with information was asked to call Lauderhill police or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.