Two men have been arrested after a Lake Wales party shooting left four people injured in Florida, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.
Richard William Fante, 20, from Lakeland, and Cordae DeShawn Hammonds, 19, from Avon Park, were taken into custody on Thursday, 1 October. Both face four counts of attempted second-degree murder and 62 counts of culpable negligence.
Lake Wales party shooting
The shooting happened shortly after midnight on Sunday, 27 September, at a property known as the Mud Hole on Alturas Babson Park Cut-Off Road, west of US 27.
Between 150 and 300 people were attending a gathering advertised on social media with the slogan “Good vibes, good people, and no drama”, according to the sheriff’s office.
Deputies arrived at about 12.18am after reports that several people had been shot. An 18-year-old woman from Lakeland, who had been wounded in the abdomen, was taken by ambulance to hospital and was reported to be in a stable condition.
Three other victims had already been driven to hospitals by friends. They included a 20-year-old woman from Lake Wales who was shot in the thigh, a 19-year-old Lakeland man wounded in the arm and a 21-year-old woman from Eagle Lake who was shot in the foot.
Detectives interviewed more than 100 people at the scene and in the days that followed before identifying the two suspects, the Polk County Sheriff’s Office said.
Authorities have not disclosed what led to the gunfire or identified a possible motive. The investigation remains open and further arrests have not been ruled out.
Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd said: “This was an incredibly dangerous thing for young people to do and it’s a miracle nobody was killed.”
He added that investigators had used “a lot of resources” to resolve the case quickly, while warning that the inquiry was continuing.
