Two men were shot around 7:30 Friday evening in front of Harry’s Liquor and the Cigarette & Cigar shop at First and Gettysburg in Fresno.
Emergency medics rushed one man into an ambulance as other responders worked to get his passenger out of a black Chevy Tahoe and into the back of another ambulance.
Both men would later die at the hospital.
“It’s unusual. I don’t remember the last time I received a shooting call in a parking lot of a business while it’s open, so it’s pretty rare,” ,” said Lt. Jose Garza.
The eruption of gunfire put a scare into everyone who was in the area.
“I’ve never seen so many people scatter so quickly before,” said Jason Frank, a witness.
Police have not made any arrests. The only description of the suspects is that two Hispanic men were seen running away. Investigators are checking surveillance cameras.
“Hopefully we’ll have a business in this parking lot that shows the incident and the suspects,” said Lt. Garza.
The crime scene trapped all of the vehicles parked here at the time. Folks could leave on foot, but were not allowed to move their cars.
An inconvenience, but on the bright side, it enabled officers to collect many different witness statements without much leg work.
“It will help and hopefully they can identify once we end up finding who is responsible for the shooting. It would definitely be a big help if they can identify them,” said Lt. Garza.
The city of Fresno now has 21 murders on the year.