TAFT, Okla. — Authorities mentioned one particular person was killed and 7 had been injured in a taking pictures early Sunday at an outside pageant in japanese Oklahoma, with witnesses describing frantic folks working for canopy because the gunfire erupted.
Two juveniles had been amongst these shot on the Memorial Day occasion close to Taft, about 45 miles southeast of Tulsa, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation mentioned in a press release.
Witnesses mentioned an argument preceded the gunfire simply after midnight, the company mentioned. No one has been arrested, it mentioned.
“We heard a lot of shots and we thought it was firecrackers at first,” mentioned Sylvia Wilson, an proprietor of Taft’s Boots Cafe, which was open on the time to serve a surge of holiday makers to the small city for the Memorial Day weekend gathering. “Then people start running and ducking. And we were yelling at everyone… ‘Get down! Get down!” Wilson mentioned by phone from the cafe on Sunday morning.
About 1,500 folks attended the occasion in Taft, which normally has a inhabitants of just some hundred folks. Members of the Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office had been in attendance and instantly started rendering help, OSBI mentioned.
The company offered no different particulars together with the circumstances of these injured. The Muskogee County Sheriff’s Office referred the AP to OSBI for extra data.
“Bullets were literally flying everywhere,” Jasmayne Hill, who was working at a meals truck in the course of the occasion, informed the Tulsa World.
Hill mentioned she and Tiffany Walton, the proprietor of the meals truck, dove to the truck’s flooring to keep away from the bullets.
“We’re thinking we’re safe and the bullets are like going through the bottom of the food truck,” Hill mentioned. “They didn’t hit us, thank God.”
Neicy Bates and her husband had been working one other meals truck when the pictures rang out. She informed the Tulsa World that most individuals “were just going to the ground trying to get out of the way.”
“People were just screaming. Some were trying to run away. There were cars leaving, trying not to hit each other,” she mentioned.
Walton, who lives in Taft, mentioned for many years the city has held a multi-day pageant over Memorial Day weekend.
Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt mentioned on Twitter that he was grateful for the OSBI’s “swift response to assist local police and am confident in Oklahoma law enforcement’s ability to bring justice to whoever is responsible for this deadly incident.”
Source: www.bostonherald.com”