Community in disbelief after block party shooting leaves 2 dead, several others hurt
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MEMPHIS, Tenn. – An entire community was in disbelief Sunday, a day after a mass shooting in a neighborhood park.
The mass shooting at Orange Mound park left eight people shot.
Of those injured, two died.
It’s the sad reality Rev. Reginald Tucker said is the outcome to so many altercations that turn deadly in Memphis.
He said he’s saddened to see what happened Saturday night in the park he’s known to hold community and church events in.
Video from Facebook taken moments before the shooting shows a car doing donuts on the basketball court in Orange Mound Park. It was interrupted by gunfire and screaming.
“This is totally heartbreaking,” Tucker said. “For people to come together and just out to have fun, then all of a sudden, you’ve got this gun fire.”
The pastor said what worries him the most is the number of guns people carried out in the open at the event where the shooting happened.
“We need to step up as elected officials to take our city back from this crime,” Tucker said. “And the first thing, it’s got to be stiffer gun laws. No one should be able to buy a gun without a license. I cannot drive my truck. Is everything that you do. You have to have a license for.”
Tucker said his message this week to his Orange Mound congregation after this tragedy is simple: “I’m promoting, ‘My life matters.’ And a lot of times we think our life matters. My life matters to God. To me, my family, every individual that I come into contact with, my life matters.”