A festive homecoming celebration in Lexington, Mississippi, was shattered early Saturday morning when gunfire erupted, claiming the lives of three individuals and injuring eight others. The violence broke out just after the Holmes County Consolidated School’s football team secured a victory, drawing hundreds of attendees eager to commemorate the win.
Around 12:30 A.M., a dispute among revelers escalated, prompting at least two young men to open fire into a crowd of approximately 200 to 300 people. “The football team had won the homecoming game and people wanted to go and celebrate the win,” Holmes County Sheriff Willie March said.
In the aftermath, eight victims were rushed to local hospitals, with some needing airlift to medical facilities in Jackson, about 60 miles from the site of the shooting.
Joe Johnson, co-owner of the Indian Creek Trail where the incident occurred, shared his harrowing experience of the night with The New York Post. He had rented the venue for the celebration, which was set to end just before the shooting began. “We had 30 minutes to go, and I was about to comment, ‘It won’t be long,’ and that’s when I heard the shots going off,” Johnson said. He noted that security personnel were usually present at events held at Indian Creek Trail, having previously confiscated weapons, but this time they were unable to prevent firearms from entering. “The shots sounded like a machine gun,” he told WAPT.
Investigators are currently looking into the possibility that the shooter used a firearm equipped with a “switch,” which can convert a semi-automatic pistol into a fully automatic weapon, according to the Clarion Ledger. “You’ve got so much innocent blood that’s being shed, that’s what hurts me”, Johnson lamented. “I’d just like to be able to talk to our young people and tell them, you know, to love one another.”
