Neighborhood’s latest brush with gun violence sees 1 dead
WEST PALM BEACH — When residents walked out their doors or rounded corners Thursday near Sapodilla Avenue and Sixth Street to a familiar sight — yellow tape, flashing lights and stiff police officers — they were frustrated.
One man was dead and another was injured in the third fatal incident the neighborhood has seen in the past month, West Palm Beach police said. On Monday, there had been a nonfatal shooting along the same street that left one person injured.
“They know this street is hot,” one woman, who declined to give her name, said of city police. “They’ve got cameras all around here, they know what the (expletive) is going on.”
She said she feared that nothing will happen until the “wrong person” gets killed in a retaliation shooting. She said it’s a matter of time until that happens.
Some residents seemed surprised that the shooting happened in broad daylight. Police responded to multiple 911 calls at about 11:20 a.m. to the 700 block of North Sapodilla, about 1 mile northwest of CityPlace.
When one man came back from a trip to Publix to the sight of more yellow tape, he shook his head and lamented how young people are killing young people.
West Palm Beach police Sgt. Dennis Hardiman said both victims were men and were found on the ground before being taken to hospitals. He did not give any other identifying information. Hardiman said he believes both were shot at by another person, not shooting at each other. Another woman nearby said of the shots, “that’s all we (hear) all day.” She said she heard 30 rounds back to back.
Around the ropes of police tape, crowds gathered and tried to piece together what happened between rumors and witness accounts. One man walked by hurriedly while on the phone, telling someone he didn’t know about the status of a friend. People coming home seemed confused at the tape and the specifics of the incident, but not surprised.
Another woman said she’s scared, especially for when summer comes and her kids are out of school next month. She has three children under the age of 5 who attend programs at a nearby community center, where earlier this month there was another shooting.
“They’re scared to walk to the store,” she said. She said she and her kids have heard shots and had to run for their lives.
She shook her head and predicted that when summer starts, there will only be more killings. In 2017, there were three homicides over the summer in the neighborhood between Palm Beach Lakes Boulevard and Banyan Boulevard.
Thursday’s is the 12th in West Palm Beach this year and the 39th in Palm Beach County, according to a Palm Beach Post online database.
Anyone with information about the shooting should call the West Palm Beach Police Department at 561-8221900 or Crime Stoppers of Palm Beach County at 800458-TIPS (8477).