Deputies seeking gunman after gunshots reported
Shooting occurred in area where others have been killed recently.
LAKE WORTH — A report of shots fired led Palm Beach County Sheriff ’s Office authorities Thursday afternoon to respond to the city’s south end, near where two men have been killed since Oct 30.
Deputies arrived at about 12:30 p.m. to the area near 10th Avenue South and South Dixie Highway, but by 1:10 p.m. they had slowed the search as neither a victim nor a suspect had been found.
They did collect multiple shell casings from the scene, although the Sheriff ’s Office did not specify the number.
Sheriff ’s spokeswoman Teri Barbera confirmed that evidence was found that shots had been fired, but said officers were not able to find the gunman.
Streets in the area were closed briefly during the investigation. Among those responding to the scene was a SWAT unit from the Sheriff ’s Office.
In the past week and a half,
two men have been killed less than a half-mile from where the shots were reportedly fired Thursday.
On Oct. 30, Lucio Velazques-Morales, 33, was found shot to death on the front lawn of a home on South H Street, just south of the intersection with 10th Avenue South. The home’s residents had heard shots overnight and discovered the body as they were leaving for work.
And on Sunday morning, a 25-year-old was found dead four blocks south of Thursday’s alleged shooting, on the 400 block of South F Street. That man’s identity has not yet been released because authorities have not found his next of kin.
Those two killings make up one-third of the city’s six reported homicides since January.