A bar in Dural, Florida was witness Saturday to a mass shooting incident that left one security guard, the suspect, a police officer and six bystanders shot, multiple outlets reported.
Jamal Wayne Wood, the alleged 37-year-old gunman, and George Alejandro Castellanos, the 23-year-old security officer, were killed in the shooting spree at a nightclub around five miles west from Miami, the Doral Police Department (DPD) said, according to the outlet. (RELATED: ‘It’s Way Too Hot’: Video Shows Police Desperately Trying To Rescue 11-Year-Old From Raging Fire)
“Didn’t really know where it was coming from. I thought it was fireworks. Then I heard probably 10 or 15 [gun shots] directly after that — very, very fast and very loud. It was very scary — very scary,” William Suedois, a resident who lived near the bar, told Local 10.
The incident started as “an altercation amongst patrons at a local establishment,” DPD spokeswoman Alicia Neal said, CNN reported. Doral Police Chief Edwin Lopez reportedly told reporters that it was difficult at this stage to know whose bullets ended up in the bystanders during the exchange between the police and the alleged shooter.
“It’s too early to tell who was shot by who,” Lopez said, the outlet reported.
One policeman who was shot quickly applied a tourniquet to himself and his training “is a testament to why that officer is alive today,” Lopez maintained during a press conference, a clip posted in a tweet Saturday by the DPD showed.
While we are saddened by the tragic loss of the security guard involved in the incident this morning, along with the injuries sustained to several innocent bystanders, we are encouraged by the heroic response by our law enforcement officers, who swiftly engaged the gunman 1/ pic.twitter.com/4QAuHGqGya
— Doral Police Dept. (@DoralPolice) April 6, 2024
Lopez said in the same conference that the investigation into this incident was a “multi-agency” one between “Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Miami-Dade Police Department and the Doral Police Department.”