Sheriff’s deputies are investigating a fatal shooting overnight that led to a crime scene near two Marion County schools.
News 6 confirmed Thursday that two gunshot victims showed up at area hospitals. One of those victims, a man, has since died.
Deputies have not said where the shooting took place. They are looking for security camera footage from people living in the area to help with their investigation.
A car tied to the shooting crashed along Southwest 95th Street, near the entrance to Liberty Middle School. Deputies say a gun was also found in the road by Hammett Bowen Jr. Elementary School, which is next door to Liberty Middle.
Deputies say there is no danger to the public or the schools and the case appears to be isolated.
A woman sitting inside a Southwest Ocala urgent care says she watched a young man carry his shot friend through the hallway Wednesday night, desperately searching for help.
Vivian Bradford says she was at the clinic when the commotion started.
“Out of nowhere we just heard like some commotion and then I saw a young man like running down the hallway, well trying to run down the hallway, carrying the other young man, and you can tell something was really wrong,” Bradford said.
Bradford says the man carrying his friend kept saying the same thing over and over.
“My friend’s been shot, he got shot in the stomach,” she recalled him repeating.
Bradford says seeing the young man’s frantic effort to save his friend shook her deeply.
“I saw him, you know, so it’s not like I just heard it. And, you know, just not just him, but his friend, you know, he was desperately trying to get him help,” she said.
She says she prayed the victim would survive and found herself thinking about the families involved — imagining it could have been one of her own loved ones.
“It’s a sad situation, you know, because like I said, I’m sure there could be ways to work things out. You know, not everything has to, you know, be gun violence,” Bradford said.
Detectives think the incident happened between 11 p.m. and midnight Wednesday — the same timeframe Bradford was at the urgent care. Detectives are now asking anyone living in the surrounding area to check their security cameras for footage from that window.
If anyone has information, they encourage residents to reach out to their non-emergency number at 352-732-9111
Investigators say information remains limited. The condition of the other shooting victim is still unknown at this time.