At 7:30 last night, Bunche Park was humming with activity -- pickup basketball games scuffling on the asphalt, young football players running drills, and moms and dads enjoying the cool November weather. Then a black Chevy Impala slowly drove past and rained at least a dozen bullets on the crowd, scattering the athletes and leaving four wounded, including an 11-year-old in football pads.
The shooting, ironically, happened just hours after Miami Gardens cops and federal agents announced a huge bust of illegal weapons dealers blocks from Bunche Park.The shooters seemed to be aiming at the basketball courts, where three adults were hit by the gunfire, says Miami Gardens police Capt. Ralph Suarez.
"Bullets were flying everywhere," Ashley Stroud, a 25-year-old witness, tells the Miami Herald.
A cop nearby heard the gunfire and ran to the scene, where he also found the 11-year-old victim who'd been hit by a stray round.
Riptide has left messages with Sgt. Bill Bamford, the department's spokesman, this morning for an update on the victims' conditions. We'll update when we hear back, but the AP reports that all four were expected to survive.
The shooting, amazingly enough, happened soon after a gala news conference in Miami Gardens, where authorities announced the end of a weapons sting called "Operation Gardens Gnomes."
Local and federal agents confiscated 55 weapons - including a machine gun, an assault rifle and numerous sawed-off shotguns -- from an area in the Gardens they dubbed a "weapons bazaar."
State Attorney Katherine Fernandez Rundle told reporters than a buyer in the area could find an assault rifle for under $100, the Herald reported.
A few hours later, at Bunche Park, whoever was in that Chevy Impala did their best to prove her right.
