Two teens injured in latest shooting

The broken back window of a car in the parking lot of Parkside Gardens Apartments is shown on Friday. The complex was the site of a Thursday night shooting that left two teenagers with non-life-threatening injuries. [Jennifer Murty/Ocala Gazette]

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Posted June 11, 2021 | By Ainslie Lee, ainslie@ocalagazette.com

Two teenagers suffered non-life-threatening gunshot wounds after a shooting at Parkside Gardens Apartments late Thursday night, according to the Ocala Police Department.

Officers responded to 621 NW 2nd St. after receiving a call at 11:54 p.m. of gunshots. They found a young man and a young woman with injuries, OPD reported.

Their ages were not released.

Investigators are working the incident as a drive-by shooting but were not releasing details as of Friday afternoon.

“I’m not sure what the cooperation level has been from the people in the neighborhood,” said OPD Capt. Charlie Eades.

A resident at the complex, who would only give his name as Rudolph, was in bed when he heard the gunshots.

The man, who has lived in the complex for eight years, said criminal activity has recently picked up at Parkside Gardens.

On May 21, OPD responded to the complex after someone reported gunfire at 5:55 p.m. No one was injured in that incident, and no arrests were made.

A resident of the complex told officers that she witnessed a man get out of a vehicle before brandishing a pistol in his waistband. The resident said the man fired two rounds at a black vehicle, which then drove off. The reported gunman ran out of the complex, according to the May 21 incident report.

Investigators located one 9mm casing but don’t believe it was part of the shooting, reports state.

On Friday, OPD said they don’t suspect the latest shooting was tied to other recent incidents.

“There appears to be no connection to anything else,” Eades said. “These are two teenagers – one was visiting a friend. They aren’t connected to any other open investigations.”

Thursday’s shooting is the latest in a spate that has left three teens dead.

On June 5, Kobe Bradshaw, 18, was shot and killed in Ocala Park Estates just before 3:45 p.m. near Northwest 62nd Place. He was taken to an Ocala hospital where he later died.

While authorities are not releasing details about Bradshaw’s killing, investigators wanted to talk to Bradshaw about the shooting death of Chris “Chevy” Chevelon, 15, in December at Sutton Place Apartments, located at 520 NE 23rd Circle.

Chevelon was a student and football player at Vanguard High School. A witness told investigators that Bradshaw blamed Chevelon after Bradshaw was shot last June.

“It’s been an ongoing thing, and it’s all been stemming from, I think, back to that boy that got killed at Vanguard – one of the Vanguard students,” Rudolph said. “And someone else went and killed another guy… It’s just been one group is always going after another group, and I don’t know what it is.”

A third teen also was shot in late January near Northwest Fifth Street and Northwest 110th Avenue, according to the Marion County Sheriff’s Office.

Omarea James, 18, was shot in the back. He survived but suffered a spinal injury. Nathaniel James Woodruff, 20, was arrested in connection to that shooting.

In July, Ky’rion Weather, 15, died of a gunshot wound suffered at a home on Southeast 105th Avenue in Summerfield. No charges have been filed in the case.

While OPD said Thursday’s shooting was not directly connected to any open cases, Rudolph thinks there is a broader connection.

“It’s been an ongoing thing,” he said. “All these shootings around here in Ocala. I think they’re all interconnected in some kinda way.”