Numerous police, fire, and EMS crews responded Thursday to what was described as a “mass casualty event” in Shreveport, Louisiana.
This is an emerging (i.e., evolving) story. This means we know very little with complete certainty. Remember: Initial reports are always wrong. Even if they’re just incomplete.
Shreveport PD and FD were dispatched to multiple locations at approximately 15:44 hours on July 16th after receiving a 911 call reporting a domestic incident. While responding to the initial call, officers discovered a vehicle that had been struck multiple times by gunfire. Inside the vehicle was an adult female with numerous gunshot wounds. She was pronounced deceased.
It appears that the dead woman was the suspect’s mother.
Officers later determined that the victim had been pursued through that neighborhood at a high rate of speed. Her pursuer, later identified as suspect Thomas Lemons (a 24-year-old Black male), repeatedly fired into her vehicle with an as-yet-unidentified firearm.
Reports from local sources are proving to be somewhat contradictory, but as best we can tell, the chase and subsequent shootings unfolded as follows.
During the chase, the victim’s car apparently crossed into oncoming traffic and collided with another vehicle. The driver of that vehicle, later identified as Chuckie Brooks (57 yoa), was initially reported as deceased, but later information clarified that the driver was successfully revived by SFD personnel and transported to a local hospital.
After that collision, suspect Lemons reportedly crashed into a telephone pole, exited his vehicle and began firing multiple rounds at nearby individuals and passing vehicles. At least four people were said to have been hit in the following few minutes, one of them fatally. Three of the four reported casualties at the incident scene were also evacuated for medical treatment.
Lemons was taken into custody shortly thereafter, medically cleared at Ochsner LSU Health Medical Center, and then interviewed by investigators. He was initially booked into the Shreveport city jail on one count of second-degree murder, but additional charges are expected by the Caddo Parish DA’s Office.
Another, unrelated shooting apparently occurred concurrently with the Lemons event in a separate location. There, three men were shot at by another assailant who was also in a car. Two of those men escaped by running into a business. The third was hit in one or more times in the leg and is being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
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