SPARTANBURG, S.C. — Two teenagers, aged 15 and 17, were killed and a third person was injured in a shooting reported on Saturday night at a Cook Out restaurant in Spartanburg, South Carolina, in an investigation that Spartanburg police and the Spartanburg County Coroner's Office were still actively working on Sunday, according to WYFF News 4 and FOX Carolina. Because both of the young people who died were minors, Awaaz Punjab is reporting their ages and city only and is not naming them.
Source: WYFF News 4
The restaurant is at 1620 John B. White Sr. Boulevard in Spartanburg. Spartanburg County Coroner Rusty Clevenger said his office was contacted just after midnight on Sunday, November 1, and was requested at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center rather than at the restaurant scene. The coroner listed one teenager's time of death as 12:04 a.m. and the other's as 12:10 a.m. on Sunday.
Police said one other victim was injured in the shooting and was taken to hospital by a family member. Officials have not released that person's condition, and they have not described what happened inside or outside the restaurant in the moments before the gunfire.
What the police chief and the coroner said
Spartanburg's police chief, Chief Littlejohn, appealed directly to the community about the two teenagers. “I want to be totally clear,” he said, “that the young people here were not bad young people. They were just kids.”
Coroner Clevenger made a similar appeal as his office prepared its examinations. “This is still a very active investigation for my agency and Spartanburg city,” he said. “I ask Spartanburg to keep family and friends of both these young men in your thoughts and prayers during their time of loss and grief.”
What is not yet known
Police say no suspects have been identified at this time. Investigators have not announced a motive, have not said how many people fired weapons, and have not released any description of a person or vehicle they are looking for. Those gaps are a normal feature of the first day of a homicide investigation, but they also mean early rumours circulating locally should be treated with caution until police confirm them.
WYFF noted that the Spartanburg shooting comes after a separate stabbing at another Cook Out restaurant in Greenville County, on Woodruff Road, in which three men were reported hospitalised. Officials have not said the two incidents are linked, and they are being reported here as separate events in separate counties.
Background: why this case is drawing wide attention
Cook Out is a busy late-night fast-food chain across the Carolinas, and its restaurants and parking lots are common gathering points for young people on weekend nights. A shooting at such an ordinary, crowded family location — on Halloween weekend, with teenagers among the customers — is the reason this case drew immediate attention across the Upstate on Sunday, well beyond Spartanburg itself.
For Punjabi and other immigrant families living across the Carolinas, the case is also a reminder of a question parents raise after every such shooting: how quickly a routine late-night food stop can turn into a police scene, and how important it is for young drivers and passengers to leave an area at the first sign of a confrontation and to call 911 rather than gather around it.
What happens next
The Coroner's Office said autopsies — forensic examinations — will be performed to assist the investigation, with examinations reported as scheduled for Monday morning, November 2. The Spartanburg Police Department is overseeing the criminal investigation. Police are expected to review surveillance video from the restaurant area and to interview witnesses who were in the parking lot on Saturday night.
Anyone who was at or near the Cook Out on John B. White Sr. Boulevard on Saturday night and saw anything relevant is the kind of witness investigators typically ask to come forward to Spartanburg police. Awaaz Punjab will update this story if police name a suspect, make an arrest, or release the injured person's condition.