DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. (AP) — Police traded shots with a gunman early Sunday on a street crowded with young people visiting t for Black College Reunion weekend. The gunman was killed and four officers and two bystanders were injured.
The shootings occurred outside a restaurant in an area jammed with people coming out of nightspots on one of Daytona Beach’s busiest weekends of the year.
Two officers were escorting the man off the street when he shot them both in the chest, said police Sgt. Clem Malek. Both officers were wearing bulletproof vests.
In the exchange of gunfire, two other officers also were shot. Two bystanders were injured, one by flying glass and one by either glass or bullet fragments.
Neighborhood resident David Riccio estimated that he heard about 30 shots. One bullet slammed into the restaurant wall.
Authorities won’t know who shot whom until everyone’s gun is tested, said spokeswoman Stacy Hall of the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
The dead man was not carrying any identification.
The reunion weekend had been expected to attract more than 75,000 visitors, but city officials estimated the crowds had grown to 110,000, partly due to bad weather at the competing Freaknik weekend in Atlanta.
About 500 state, county and local police officers were in town to handle crowds and traffic, and had made 270 reunion-related arrests by late Saturday, said police spokesman Robert Brinkerhoff.
Only one of the six injured people, a police corporal, was admitted to a hospital, and he was in satisfactory condition, authorities said.