JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – A girl was killed and a man was wounded Saturday morning in a double shooting in the Jacksonville Heights area, police said.
According to the Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office, the incident happened on the corner of Renault Drive and Hillman Drive, off 103rd Street, directly across from Jacksonville Heights Elementary around 1:10 a.m.
Officers said when they arrived, they found two victims with gunshot wounds. The man was taken to the hospital with non-life-threatening injures. But the Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department said the girl died at the scene, despite attempts to save her life. Police did not provide the girl’s age, but she’s believed to be a teenager.
JSO said investigators believe two groups of people were outside a house when an argument broke out and several people pulled out weapons and exchanged gunfire, striking the man and girl.
Several people were detained and taken to the Police Memorial Building for interviews, police said.
Police said this appears to be an isolated incident between parties who know each other.
A nearby neighbor told News4Jax they were woken up around 1:30 a.m. by what sounded like 15 or 20 gunshots. At least a dozen evidence markers could be seen on Hillman Drive and across the street in the driveway of the elementary school, where Claudine Monsanto was walking her third-grade daughter for Saturday school.
“That means the violence is increasing. I moved here in 2006. I never heard gunshots but a couple of months (ago) we started hearing gunshots and stuff like that so it’s very scary,” Monsanto said.
Monsanto said the neighborhood is filled with kids.
“The violence needs to stop because killing each other is not solving the problem, and we have kids growing up, and now I’m watching everywhere I go because right now I’m walking and a gun can show up anywhere,” Monsanto said.
Crime scene technicians were also seen on Tempest Road South, on the other side of the school, towing away a car.