At least 10 people were wounded in a drive-by shooting Monday afternoon in Lakeland, Florida, police said.
Lakeland Police Chief Sam Taylor told a news conference that they were still searching for the shooters as of 7pm local time, adding that they believed the shooting was targeted rather than random.
Taylor said two people are in critical condition. One was in surgery and the other was “either in surgery or on the way to surgery” at the time of the press conference. Taylor said one was shot in the abdomen and the other was shot in the “jaw area”.
He said eight other people had non-life-threatening injuries. One of them had a rebound wound, Taylor said.
All of the victims were adult males, “between the ages of 20 and 35,” Taylor said.
“This is something that didn’t happen in Lakeland,” he said. “It actually saddens me a bit that we consider ourselves a small town between Tampa and Orlando, and when things like this happen it just hits me a little bit. Maybe we’re not a small town anymore.”
The shooting occurred around 3:45 p.m., Taylor said, and that the gunfire came from all four windows of the slow-moving four-door Nissan. The car was described as dark blue with tinted windows and a temporary sign.
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