4th victim found dead after a mass shooting at a Fourth of July block party in Shreveport, Louisiana
Three people are dead and at least six are injured following a shooting just before midnight on July 4
By Rebekah Riess, Holly Yan, Ryan Young and Emma Tucker, CNN
(CNN) — A fourth person has been found dead from a mass shooting at a Fourth of July block party in northern Louisiana, a police and a Shreveport city official said Wednesday – a shooting that also left seven others injured.
At least 11 people were shot at the block party in Shreveport around 11:40 p.m. Tuesday, authorities have said.
Police initially said three people were killed but later announced a fourth was found dead Wednesday. That person’s body was discovered in an area with tall grass and dense vegetation, Shreveport Councilwoman Tabatha Taylor said.
Officials are hoping to get a drone in the air to continue searching for other possible victims, Taylor said.
The Caddo Parish Coroner’s Office identified the victims as Morad Aziz, 22; Syncere Brown, 17; Jarike J. Dorsey, 19; and Demorie Williams, 24.
“Last night was a horrible night here in Shreveport,” Shreveport Police Chief Wayne Smith told reporters Wednesday.
Among the seven people who were shot and survived, one was in critical condition and six suffered non-life-threatening wounds, according to Shreveport police spokesperson Sgt. Angie Willhite.
“It’s believed that multiple males engaged in an exchange of gunfire,” Smith said.
It’s not clear what led up to the gunfire, which shattered a “family and community event” that had safely taken place for more than a decade, Taylor said.
No suspects have been arrested.
Partygoer says he lost two friends in shooting
Johnnie Winn, who was at the block party, told CNN affiliate KSLA that two of his friends were killed in the shooting. He’s attended the annual party several times and many of the partygoers have lived in the area for decades, he told KSLA.
Shortly before gunfire erupted, Winn “got a weird vibe” when he saw a few younger men start to follow other people, he told KSLA. Moments later, he saw roughly 10 to 15 people fighting before shots were fired and people started running, he said.
The scene was chaos, Winn said. He hid under a truck with three people he didn’t know, he told KSLA.
“We didn’t know each other, but we protected each other,” he told the station.
It was difficult for first responders to get to the victims due to the number of vehicles at the gathering, police told KSLA.
“Getting here and getting EMS here was a difficult thing. A lot of us had to park our cars and take off running because there were so many cars on the side of the street,” Shreveport police Lt. Van Wray told KSLA.
With a potentially large number of witnesses, Taylor implored anyone with information to call police, even anonymously.
“I am looking for justice for these families,” the councilwoman said, adding that the assailants “have traumatized us in a way that is unfathomable.”
A spate of mass shootings over July 4 weekend
The tragedy in Louisiana was among a spate of mass shootings across the country over the Fourth of July weekend.
In Baltimore, at another block party on Sunday, two people were killed and another 28 were shot and injured – mostly teenagers. Investigators are searching for multiple assailants.
In Philadelphia, five people, including a 15-year-old boy, were killed Monday night. Authorities said the shooter appeared to fire randomly along several blocks of the city’s Kingsessing neighborhood before officers arrested the suspect, who was found with an AR-style rifle and a handgun.
In Texas, three people were killed and eight others were wounded in Fort Worth late Monday night – hours before the neighborhood’s Fourth of July parade took place on the same street.
And in Washington, DC, nine people were injured – including two minors – shortly before 1 a.m. Wednesday. Someone from a vehicle “fired shots in the direction of some of our residents that were outside just celebrating the Fourth of July,” Metropolitan Police Assistant Chief Leslie Parsons said.
Across the country, at least 412 people have been killed in mass shootings so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive. Like CNN, the nonprofit defines mass shootings as those in which four or more people are shot – not including the perpetrators.
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CNN’s Jeremy Grisham contributed to this report.
