Twelve people were injured — six of them children — when shots were fired on a street beside Bragg Memorial Stadium in Tallahassee on Saturday night, shortly after Florida A&M University’s homecoming football game against Arkansas–Pine Bluff, the Associated Press reported.
The shooting happened just before 8 p.m. at the corner of Perry and Manatee streets, alongside the stadium, on the university’s campus in Florida’s capital. Eleven of the twelve injured people were struck by gunfire. The twelfth, a grandmother of one of the victims, was injured as she fled the scene, according to the Tallahassee Democrat.
The injured were six adults and six juveniles, and the youngest victim was 11 years old. At least one of the victims is a Florida A&M student, the Democrat reported. The victims were hurt as the area around the stadium was busy with people who had attended the homecoming game and the events surrounding it.
Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell said a fight between two or three individuals immediately preceded the gunfire. Police believe a single shooter was involved, and Revell described the shooting as an isolated incident. No arrests had been made as of the police department’s most recent update, and police had not announced the identity of any suspect.
The conditions of the injured were updated twice in the hours after the shooting. At a midnight briefing, Revell said three of the victims were in serious condition — one of them critical — and that eight were stable. On Sunday, the Tallahassee Police Department said five of the victims had been released from hospital care, six remained hospitalized, and one remained in critical condition. The department stressed in its Sunday update that no deaths had been reported.
The game was the centerpiece of homecoming at Florida A&M, the annual weekend that draws alumni and families back to the historically Black university in Tallahassee. The Rattlers played Arkansas–Pine Bluff, a fellow member of the Southwestern Athletic Conference, at Bragg Memorial Stadium, the university’s home field, which stands alongside Perry Street.
Beyond the chief’s account of the fight, police released few details about how the shooting unfolded. The reports published on Sunday included no motive and no description of the shooter. The one characterization police gave from the outset was Revell’s: an isolated incident, preceded by a fight between two or three people, with one shooter believed responsible.
The department returned to the case on Sunday with the updated figures on the victims’ conditions, and repeated the point it had made through the night — that despite twelve people being injured, six of them children, no one had been killed. As of that update, the investigation was continuing and no arrest had been announced.
The official account of the night therefore rests on two statements: Revell’s midnight briefing, given roughly four hours after the shots were fired, and the department’s update on Sunday. Both gave the same outline — a fight between two or three people, gunfire that followed it, one shooter believed responsible, and an incident police classify as isolated — and the Sunday statement added the victims’ updated conditions, with five people already released from hospital care.
The shooting came at the end of the biggest day of the university’s year. Florida A&M’s homecoming game is played at Bragg Memorial Stadium against a conference opponent — this year Arkansas–Pine Bluff, the Golden Lions — and the streets around the stadium, including Perry Street at its corner with Manatee Street, carry the crowds moving between the campus and the game. It was on that corner, beside the stadium, that the twelve people were injured on Saturday night.
The Facts
- Twelve people were injured just before 8 p.m. on Saturday, October 24, at Perry and Manatee streets beside Bragg Memorial Stadium in Tallahassee, after Florida A&M’s homecoming game against Arkansas–Pine Bluff.
- Eleven victims were shot; the twelfth, a grandmother of one victim, was injured fleeing. Six victims were adults and six were juveniles; the youngest was 11. At least one victim is a FAMU student.
- Police Chief Lawrence Revell said a fight between two or three individuals preceded the gunfire, that police believe one shooter was involved, and that the shooting was an isolated incident.
- No arrests had been announced as of the Tallahassee Police Department’s Sunday update.
- Revell’s midnight briefing put three victims in serious condition, one critical, and eight stable. The Sunday update said five victims had been released, six remained hospitalized, one was still critical, and no deaths had been reported.
Sources: Associated Press; Tallahassee Democrat; statements by Tallahassee Police Chief Lawrence Revell and the Tallahassee Police Department.
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