'That was crazy!' Witnesses share what they saw at mass shooting on Akron's Kelly Avenue
One minute, they were dancing and listening to music.
The next, bullets were flying and they were running.
“You don’t expect to go from having fun to having to run for your life,” said Joyous Payne, 21, who was among those at a birthday party that turned into a mass shooting on Akron’s east side just after midnight Sunday.
Police say two dozen people were injured and at least one was killed in the shooting at Kelly and 8th avenues. Authorities identified the victim Monday morning as LaTeris Cook, 27, of Akron.
By 9 a.m. Sunday, the street where chaos had erupted just hours before was quiet, with a yellow police caution tape attached to a chain link fence on Kelly Avenue and a car on 8th Avenue among the only remnants of what happened there.
The shooting happened in the middle of an area near Joy Park Homes, an Akron Metropolitan Housing (AMHA) development, and a collection of single-family homes.
Some residents reluctant to discuss Kelly Avenue mass shooting
A man standing in the door of his Joy Park home said he heard lots of gunshots but didn’t want to talk about it.
“There’s too much involved,” he said.
Two teenage girls searched a field by where the shooting happened, looking for the cellphone of a friend who dropped it when she ran. Neither of them was at the party.
Payne, 21, and Treasure Bell, 31, were walking up Kelly Avenue about 10 a.m. Sunday toward the shooting scene when they stopped to share what they saw. They said the birthday party, which was for a man who lives in a house near Kelly and 8th, was going on most of the day and was very peaceful.
As the hours grew later, Payne said police came because there were a lot of people in the street. She said the party-goers moved to the sidewalk and an open field.
Payne said music was playing and people were singing and dancing.
“Nobody was fighting,” she said. “There was no drama.”
“We all was just having fun,” she continued.
Suddenly, Payne said, bullets started flying and people ran, with some getting trampled.
Bell said one man running with them had a hole in his face where he’d been shot.
“People were laying on the ground, not moving,” Payne said.
“That was a horrific experience,” Bell said.
Joy Park neighbors stunned by spray of bullets amid night of fun
Payne, who recently moved to Joy Park, she said didn’t know everyone at the party and isn’t sure who got shot. She said she does know that the people she came to the party with weren’t among those who were wounded.
Payne said people got into cars and left or were taken away by ambulances. She went home.
“I can’t believe all of that happened!” she said. “That was crazy!”
Payne said she hopes more people don’t end up dying from the shooting. She estimated that several hundred people were at the party.
“So many people got hurt,” she said.
Payne said the man who had the party owns tow truck companies in Akron. She said he’s previously had parties that didn’t end in bloodshed.
A man on the porch of JULIA House, a recovery home for veterans that’s near where the shooting occurred, said the party went on for about 10 hours. He said the police showed up and asked the partygoers to wrap it up. About a half-hour later, he said, the shooting happened.
The man, who didn’t want to give his name, said someone in a car sprayed bullets at a house and people came out and returned fire at the vehicle.
Another man walking up Kelly Avenue said he was at the party and fled when the shooting started. He said he’s not sure what prompted the shooting.
“It was fun,” said the man, who declined to give his name. “Somebody came and made it not fun.”
Stephanie Warsmith can be reached at swarsmith@thebeaconjournal.com, 330-996-3705 and on Twitter: @swarsmithabj.
This article originally appeared on Akron Beacon Journal: Mass shooting in Akron detailed by those who live there
