Two people were killed and eleven others were wounded in shootings at two separate Halloween parties in Jacksonville, Florida, in the early hours of Sunday, November 1 — the first outside a party venue on Arlington Expressway at about 1:42 a.m., the second at a house party on West 5th Street at about 3:45 a.m., the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said. Thirteen people were shot in total. A 17-year-old girl died at the first scene and a 20-year-old man died in the second shooting; by noon on Sunday, no arrests had been reported in either case, according to the Florida Times-Union's reporting of the sheriff's office briefings.

Source: Florida Times-Union

1:42 a.m. — the Arlington Expressway shooting

The first shooting happened at about 1:42 a.m. in the 6200 block of Arlington Expressway, outside the Regency Inn, where a crowd of people was lined up to get into a nearby Halloween party, the sheriff's office said. A fight broke out and escalated into gunfire. All three people hit were “unintended targets” who were not involved in the fight, Cmdr. Jacob Vorpahl of the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office said during a news briefing. Arriving officers found the 17-year-old girl dead at the scene. A second victim, with a gunshot wound, was in stable condition when Jacksonville Fire and Rescue Department responders took them to hospital, and a third victim had already taken themselves to hospital, Vorpahl said. In line with this newsroom's minor-safety rule, the teenager is identified here by age and city only.

Source: Florida Times-Union

Police are searching for at least two young men who were wearing black clothing in connection with the Arlington Expressway shooting, the sheriff's office said. No fuller suspect description, and no motive beyond the fight that preceded the gunfire, had been released by Sunday afternoon.

3:45 a.m. — the West 5th Street house party

About two hours later, at about 3:45 a.m., gunfire broke out at a house on West 5th Street near the intersection with Wilcox Street, where a party of 100 to 200 people was underway and had extended out into the street. Investigators learned that a fight broke out at the house party, leading to two separate instances of gunfire, the sheriff's office said. A 20-year-old man was killed. Nine other people were wounded and transported themselves to hospital — one with life-threatening injuries and eight with injuries considered non-life-threatening. Among the wounded was a 15-year-old girl; except for her, all of the others injured in the second shooting were between 20 and 25 years old, Vorpahl said. The sheriff's office said it has no suspect information in the West 5th Street case.

Source: Florida Times-Union

‘Violence has no place in Jacksonville’

Sheriff T.K. Waters condemned the shootings in a statement sent to news media on Sunday. “I am saddened by the heinous acts of violence our community endured this weekend,” Waters said. “My heart goes out to the victims of these senseless acts and the many others impacted. We will work tirelessly to bring these criminals to justice and accountability. Violence has no place in Jacksonville.” No updates on the condition of any of the surviving victims were available on Sunday, the sheriff's office said.

Source: Florida Times-Union

The two shootings were separate incidents at separate parties, about two hours and several miles apart, and investigators have not linked them to each other. What connects them, on the police account, is the setting: large Halloween-night gatherings where fights broke out in crowds — in the first case a queue of people waiting to get into a party, none of the victims involved in the fight at all; in the second, a house party of up to 200 people that had spilled into the street. Both investigations were still at the witness-and-video stage on Sunday, with detectives asking partygoers and neighbours who saw anything, or filmed anything, to come forward.

What happens next: the sheriff's office is looking for at least two suspects in the Arlington Expressway case and has no suspect information yet in the West 5th Street case; no arrests had been reported in either shooting as of noon Sunday. For Jacksonville's Punjabi and South Asian families — and for parents everywhere in the city — the police account carries a hard detail worth sitting with: in the first shooting, the three people hit were simply standing in line for a party, and the youngest person killed this weekend was 17. The next developments to watch are arrests or charges from the sheriff's office, any release of surveillance images of the men sought in Arlington, and updates on the one victim left with life-threatening injuries.