Gang wars break out on Memorial Day: Hundreds arrested and several killed after violence erupts across America’s beaches and parks. (Happy Memorial Day?)
Today the Drudge Report linked several stories on race-indeterminate (that’s irony) mayhem in various cities in the eastern half of the U.S.
CBS Miami has the video of the deadly shooting in which a motorist opened fire at police and the police killed him. The article includes an explanation of what is happening on the video.
CBS also has a story, “Poet Gunned Down In N. Miami.”
The Sun-News (which I assume is a Myrtle Beach paper) has a story repeating the story from WMBF posted earlier chronicling the numerous violent crimes committed in Myrtle Beach over the weekend. But get this. The Sun-News’ version leaves out all the physical and racial descriptions of the perpetrators. Funny how the expurgated version is the one that ends up being posted at the Drudge Report.WHM informs us that at a beach in Charlotte, New York, “Fights involving about 50 youths broke out around 7 o’clock Monday night. Police had to clear the area, sending people home.” There is a video of a chaotic mob. Though it is taken from a distance, it is clear that all the people are black.
Myfox.com reports: “LONG BEACH, N.Y.—A Long Island police department says it had to call for backup to quell a beach melee involving hundreds of people that spilled out onto the streets and a nearby bus depot.”
From WCNC in North Carolina, we learn that 70 people were arrested in Charlotte, N.C. after “several fights that broke out after the Speed Street celebration in Uptown.” The police department “called out its Civil Emergency Unit after reporting that many large groups of people were disobeying police, flashing gang signs, blocking traffic and fighting.… A manager at a convenience store on North Tryon Street tells NewsChannel 36 a huge crowd swarmed the store, broke a window, and began stealing things, before running away.” There was one fatality, named Antwan Terrell Smith.
And finally, the AP reports, “Teen fights, especially among girls, force early closure of north Alabama water park.” Police “say the fights continued across the city, with reports of brawls at a gas station and at a McDonald’s.”
- More than 1,000 youths from rival gangs clashed at Carson Beach, Boston
- Eight people shot dead in New York
- A dozen people arrested after fighting broke out on Charlotte Beach
- Police inundated with crime in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, including a shooting and stabbing
- A man shot dead and another wounded in a shooting in Charlotte, North Carolina
- Six people killed and 21 wounded in Chicago
Thousands of people across the U.S. took the significance of Memorial Day too literally as some of America’s beaches turned into all-out war across the holiday weekend.
The worst of the Memorial Day weekend violence took place at Carson Beach in South Boston when rival gang members clashed, triggering a massive law enforcement response from at least five agencies to get it under control.
Police said the gang members were part of a group of more than one thousand youths who organized their beach gatherings via Facebook and other social networking sites.
Violence: Police arrested more than a dozen people after fights involving about 50 youths broke out around 7pm on Monday at Ontario Beach Park, Charlotte
Where: Map showing the spate of violence which unravelled across America on Memorial Day weekend
Although the beach was filled mainly with families and other Memorial Day revellers simply trying to soak up the sun, the youths gathered at the beach and nearby parking lots.
Three state troopers responded around 5:30pm to the first report of a fight and said they were confronted with a gang of about one thousand people.
According to The Boston Globe, when the troopers called for backup, State Police streamed in, State Police Special Tactical Operations teams and Boston SWAT teams arrived, and the Boston Police Department activated its Emergency Deployment Teams, which brought officers into South Boston from all over the city.
Though there were no reports of serious injuries, a handful of youths were arrested on Friday and Sunday and by 8:30pm yesterday, State Police had arrested two people in the Memorial Day melee. A spokesman for the state police said: ‘Veteran troopers assigned to the State Police barracks for a couple of decades have never seen as large a volume of kids that were there tonight.’ He said they were mainly aged 14 to 19 years old.
Dead: Antwan Terrell Smith was shot and killed after someone pulled a gun just after 1am in Charlotte, North Carolina, over the weekend in a series of violence
Elsewhere, on Charlotte Beach, New York, police arrested more than a dozen people after fights involving about 50 youths broke out around 7pm last night. It is unclear what started the fight. Witness Kelsey Davis told ABC13: ‘There was a group of young gentleman (??!!-Ed.) running through the parking lot, saying something like someone’s getting beat up, and next thing you know there are 20 cops, ambulances, fire trucks.’
On Miami Beach, one man was killed and three police officers and four innocent bystanders were hospitalized after two separate police-involved shootings. In the first incident, police fatally shot the driver of black Mercedes who rammed several cars and a police cruiser early on Monday morning. Three police sustained minor wounds and several passersby were injured – possibly by police gunfire – when the bullets started flying, officials said.
A short time later, police opened fire on another driver who allegedly attempted to run down a cop. Nobody was hurt and the motorist was arrested.
Police in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, say they were inundated with crime during an eight-hour period between Sunday night and Monday. They received reports of five armed robberies, a stabbing, a shooting and an incident involving a shotgun being pointed at a security guard.
On Long Island, New York, police had to call for backup to quell a beach melee involving hundreds of people that spilled out onto the streets and a nearby bus depot.
Though there were no injuries or arrests, police say a series of fights erupted on the beach just before it closed at 6pm and continued for several hours.
In Charlotte, North Carolina, a man was shot and killed on Sunday morning after two rival groups began fighting. Police said at least 70 people were arrested in the melee that lead to the shooting.
Officers told WBTV that someone pulled out a handgun and started to shoot, killing 22-year-old Antwan Smith who was shot in the head. He was pronounced dead by paramedics when they arrived at the scene. Another man was shot in the leg and taken to hospital where he was later released. City leaders in Charlotte call the incident ‘disturbing’ and ‘unacceptable’. Police told WBTV they saw people flashing gang signs during the melee, while challenging other people and police officers, attempting to block sidewalks and impeding traffic. It led to one of the city’s largest mass arrests.
In North Miami, local poet Willie Lee Bell Jr. was gunned down in front of his literary cafe and poetry lounge. According to police, someone drove up to where the 46-year-old was standing, got out of the car and shot him several times.
And the violence was not just contained on the country’s beaches. It also erupted on the streets of Chicago where six people were killed and 21 wounded by gunfire on Monday.
Eight people were also killed on the streets of New York over the weekend, including a young pregnant mother in the Sheepshead Bay area of Brooklyn. Her boyfriend was also killed in the shooting.
In Nashville, Tennessee, nearly two dozen police officers were called out to Wave Country on Monday afternoon after large crowds of people became unruly. The disturbance forced Metro Park managers to close the facility two hours early on Memorial Day. Metro Parks director Tommy Lynch said: ‘Once we got to the point that the turmoil at the front of the facility also got inside the facility, we felt for everyone’s safety the best thing to do was to close it.’ Police said there were several fights inside with one of the biggest problems coming from people jumping the fence to get into the park, creating chaos inside.
Park managers said this is the first time in 30 years they have had to close Wave Country because the crowd became uncontrollable.