Bubba Hinson is a volunteer firefighter who was hanging around Myrtle Beach, S.C., for the South Carolina Fire Rescue Conference. That’s when he noticed a group of people stalling traffic on Ocean Boulevard and thought maybe he had happened across some sort of party or gathering. Instead, Hinson became the live cameraman for a shooting.
“I thought they were dancing. That’s why I started filming it,” Hinson told Myrtle Beach Online on Sunday. “Then they started fighting. Then they started shooting.”
“Multiple people down!” Hinson can be heard shouting in the livestream.
According to Myrtle Beach Online, the shooting that Hinson recorded was one of three that happened over the weekend in Myrtle Beach, leaving a total of eight people injured overall.
Hinson’s video of an early-Sunday-morning shooting went viral, getting more than 1 million views by Sunday afternoon. And now some tourists say that they’re not sure if Myrtle Beach will be on their destination list any time soon.
According to the report, the Sunday-morning incident began around 12:25, when police were attempting to break up a large crowd near Fifth Avenue North and Ocean Boulevard, with some of the people attempting to run as the police cruisers approached. Then a fight broke out between a few men at Fourth Avenue North and Ocean Boulevard. The shots came seconds later, with one of those men pulling a gun from his pants and opening fire.
The Myrtle Beach Police Department said that an armed security officer who was at the scene at the time fired and hit the shooter, who then fled the scene by carjacking a vehicle before being captured by police.
Seven people, including the shooter, were hospitalized with “non-life-threatening injuries.”
“A suspect in this case has been identified and apprehended,” Myrtle Police Lt. Joey Crosby confirmed Sunday, adding that the identity of the suspect “will be released once he has been medically cleared and the warrants can be served.”
Crosby also said that although it appeared as though an officer was shot during the Facebook Live video, no officers were injured.
“No officers were shot or injured as a result of this incident,” Crosby said. “The security officer did receive a graze wound to the leg. The injury did not require him to be transported to the hospital and he received medical attention on scene.”
Hinson told Myrtle Beach Online that he lives a few hours away from Myrtle Beach and usually visits every year, but that after the shooting, he probably won’t be back for a while.
“I always wanted a viral video, but I never wanted it to be like this,” he said.
The two other shootings in Myrtle Beach over the weekend occurred Saturday afternoon. At around 4:30 p.m., officers were called to the Coastal Grand Mall after reports of someone firing a gun. One person was shot in the parking lot and taken to the hospital with a non-life-threatening injury. A mere 10 minutes after that shooting, officers were again dispatched for another reported shooting, this time at Crown Reef Resort. However, officers did not find anyone with injuries at the scene.
Officers are still investigating all three shootings and are asking anyone with information to call the Myrtle Beach Police Department.
Read more at Myrtle Beach Online.