Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Two injured in hail of bullets
Neighborhood residents ‘scared to death’ after shooter fires dozens of gunshots into the air
It rained bullets in Boynton Beach — again.
A shooter fired dozens of gunshots into the air Monday, wounding two men and causing frightened bystanders to run for cover, police and residents said.
Officers found about 70 shell casings on a nearby road, at Northwest 20th Court. And in a 911 call, a woman said she was “scared to death” after hearing more than 40 gunshots.
It marked the second time this month that gunshots fired into the air wounded someone.
“People are minding their business, living their life,” said Manuel Jiminez, 18, whose uncle is one of the men wounded Monday. “Then someone goes around shooting into the air. They don’t know who could get hurt by a stray bullet.”
No arrests have been made, so it's unclear why someone would shoot into the air. The two men wounded Monday were taken to hospitals.
The shooting happened about 8:40 p.m. Julio Felix, 25, told police he was sitting on his front porch with friends in the 1900 block of Northwest Second Court, when he heard gunfire from the
west and ducked down. Felix ran inside his home.
Once inside, he realized he was hit in his buttocks, police said. After Felix’s nephew finished his work shift, he returned home and saw police there, he said. “I couldn’t get through because they wouldn’t let me through the police tape,” Jiminez said.
Felix was taken to Delray Medical Center.
When Jiminez visited his uncle at the hospital, he saw he was “pretty shaken up.” Doctors told his family they removed the bullet from Felix’s body, but it would take some time before he starts walking again, because of the pain, he said.
Moments after the shooting began, a woman told a 911 dispatcher she heard over 40 shots and reported that a car was leaving the area. “I saw a little boy running and hiding, and now there’s a silver car taking off, and it looked like a Grand Am,” she said.
“I’m scared to death right now,” the woman said in the 911 call.
In another 911 call, police said, Felix’s niece tried to stay calm while telling a dispatcher that people were shooting, and that her uncle was shot in front of his home. The niece told the dispatcher she was hiding in a room, scared to go outside.
About 10 p.m., police went to St. Mary’s Medical Center upon learning a second shooting victim was there.
Emanuel Austin, 32, told police he was in the area of Northwest Second Court and Northwest 19th Avenue — about a block away from where Felix was hit — when he heard the gunfire and started running.
He told police he felt a prick in his stomach when he was shot. Austin’s girlfriend drove him to the hospital.
Police spoke to residents, but no one said they saw anyone shooting.
Monday’s shootings came after a July Fourth shooting in which Glenda Jenkins, 56, was sitting on her front porch eating ice cream in the 500 block of Northwest 13th Avenue.
As she watched neighbors set off fireworks, she heard gunfire, walked inside, then realized she had been shot in her leg. She, too, survived.
“Police cannot stress enough the dangers of shooting a gun into the air,” police spokeswoman Stephanie Slater said. “Bullets can easily travel far distances, and anyone nearby could be injured.”
Police ask anyone with information on the shooting to call Boynton Beach Police at 561-732-8116.