Best views, weather, etc. How to test them 👓 SC, Ala. sites look back Betty Ford honored
NEWS
Kevin Richardson

2 killed, 7 hurt in Miami shooting

Natalie DiBlasio
USA TODAY
The body of a victim is moved from the scene after a shooting early June 24.

Two people were killed and seven wounded in a shooting early Tuesday in the Miami neighborhood of Liberty City.

"We have nobody in custody," officer Kenia Reyes, spokeswoman for the Miami police, said Tuesday evening. "We are looking for the people involved."

The dead were identified as Kevin Richardson, 29, and Nakeri Jackson, 26.

One victim was pronounced dead at the scene. The others were taken to nearby Jackson Memorial Hospital's Ryder Trauma Center, where a second victim died. The patients chose not to release information about their medical conditions.

At the crime scene, the sidewalk was littered with shattered glass and dozens of spent shell casings marked by small green police evidence cones. Some of the building's windows are boarded up and a "For Rent" sign leans against the beige housing complex where investigators marked bullet holes in the walls.

"The person that shot my nephew is a coward," said Richardson's aunt, Bennae Robinson, said at the scene. "He didn't bother anybody. He wasn't a bad person. He left behind a six-year-old son."

"He was somebody's son. He was somebody's father," Robinson said, choking up." If you know anything. come forward and say something, because this can be your child."

Fifty to 60 shots were fired, police spokeswoman Frederica Burden said.

"I'm not sure how it occurred," Burden said. "We're investigating it now. I don't know if they were all outside standing, some in a car, some not in a car."

People at the scene said they were afraid to talk about the shooting.

Neighbor Jose Hernandez said gun violence is an almost daily occurrence in the low-income neighborhood.

"I have friends who have been killed," Hernandez said. "This violence has to change."

Last April, a gunman opened fire into a crowd outside a corner store, killing a woman and wounding two men.

Miami City Manager Daniel Alfonso said city officials are going to look at their strategy against crime.

"We are going to work with our law enforcement partners to make it better," he said.

Although a police official said the department had added six officers and a canine unit to patrol the neighborhood, a news release from the police union, the Fraternal Order of Police, said the shooting was a consequence of a lack of manpower and resources.

"We have reached a tipping point in the district where the criminal element has no fear of our police officers and are beginning to act with impunity," said the news release signed by Miami police Sgt. Javier Ortiz, who is president of the city's FOP lodge.

"Folks, people are getting killed in groups three blocks outside of our police station. If this isn't a wakeup call to our stakeholders, I don't know what is," Ortiz said.

The union described the shooting as a gangland style assault.

Contributing: The Associated Press

Featured Weekly Ad