All right. Good evening.
Thank you for joining us.
Sorry it's under the circumstances tonight,
but then we've got a host of fos
behind us that'll give quick updates.
Let me introduce a few folks he.
Desiree Fergosa is our city administrator,
deputy administrator Douglas Ca.
A couple of council folks with ,
Scott Fierce, John Bogosian, chief Cornett,
Jim Bottle Maris and a host of others.
Chief Cornett, I'll just turn it
over to you for quick update, please.
Good evening. Thank you for taking the time.
Join us here so we can give you
an update on what's happening.
So as most of you are aware,
earlier today around 5 twentyis,
we had an incident on the beachm
a large crowd of individuals tht
apparently were part of a groupm
senior skip day and gathered on the beach.
There were a couple of altercats
that took place and during one
of those altercations there were
several shots that were fired.
At this point we have about 6
individuals that we know were s.
There was we've got several individuals here,
several agencies that came to assist us.
The moment the incident took pl,
we asked for assistance from asy
agencies as we could and there s
an outpour of every almost everw
enforcement agency in the tri-county area
sent officers to assist us with this,
as well as federal and state
partners who just called and std
sending people to assist us.
The moment we asked for any hel,
they came out to do so.
And I do want to make sure I pot
out that this team behind us has
been instrumental and not only
came out to help secure the are,
they helped to come out to do evidence.
Gathering and to do interviews d
conduct the investigation with .
We have FBI sled several local agencies.
Charleston County, North Charle,
Somerville, Mount Pleasant.
I don't want to forget anybody.
There's so many agencies that ce
out of Berkeley County came to assist
that really Sullivan's Island ce
out that immediately to assist.
They were our neighbors we they
were here almost instant with us
and and you know North Charlestn
said several folks as well.
I think that's all I've got.
Chief.
Did you need to update anythingr
do you want to turn over to EMS?
Are there any questions that you
have for the Community answer?
I might not be able to answer everything,
but I'll answer what I'm able t.
Chief, can you confirm the ages
of the number of the people that
were injured in today's shootin?
We know that most of them
were probably in their teens.
We had a couple of adults that
might have been in their 30s.
But most of them would have been
around the age of 18, not exactly 18,
but somewhere around that area.
We believe pretty much everybody
were seniors and then some aduls
that were a little bit older,
they were just on the beach.
So you said six, but we were gog
for earlier. So just wondering.
So right now six is the most current update.
Some have self transported to the hospital,
some that we encountered out hee
and got EMS to transport for usd
then others that took themselve.
Chief, is there anybody in custy
right now we have several individuals
that are detained that while
we're conduct this investigatio,
we don't know that any of them e
necessarily the individual that fire,
but we do have several individuals that
are detained for weapons charges right now.
And you said there
were adults on the beach who
were injured as well. Yes,
ma'am to believe they were with,
ma'am, we believe they were jus.
Just there on the beach and happen to
be a victim when the incident took place
and how many of the how many of the victims
were those people?
As far as I know only one off the top
of my head that could be inaccurate but
right now the information I have says
one and how old she would have been in
her mid 30s I believe mid 30s, early 40s
and so is. So all this started
because the senior skip
day and there's a fight that
broke out in one of the fights
right now that's what we've got.
We know there were.
There was a fight that broke out
and then a second fight that
broke out while officers were
dealing with those two incident.
That's when the the shooting started.
It was, it started around 5:20
and they were clearing the beac.
We shut the beach down from sea
cabins through County Park to lk
down County Park so that it's
a staging area for all the law
enforcement officers responding.
And we closed the connector dueo
a collision on the other side tt
we were getting people off the h
and off of the out of the parking lots.
How many people were on the beah
during occupations and the shooter? I
couldn't even compose to answering that.
It was a it was a lot. But
you cannot confirm right now
that the shooter is in custody.
I cannot. No, Sir.
We're still working on that investigation.
We have several people detained right now,
and we're conducting the investigation
to see if they were involved orf
there's going to be charges for
anything that they have with thm
right now. Would you say there e
hundreds of people on the beach?
I think that would be the first
thing. And did you tell about, did you
evacuate the beach when shots were fired?
We did. We cleared the beach so that we
could protect the crime scene and get
trying to get everybody into an area where
we could control what was happening. Are
there any factors besides,
you know, a bunch of kids going,
having seen seniors skipping,
enjoying senior skipping.
Is there any other factors besides that
that may have led to this altercation?
We don't know at this point
this we're hoping to find that
out during the investigation.
There be extra security for
this weekend because of this
incident that happened today.
So we were already planning to beef up our,
our level of officers that were here on
the island just because we knew spring
break was starting in that first weekend
is typically a very busy weeken.
So we had already planned to increase
the number of officers over here
on the island. But are you going to increase
the officers even more after this? We
probably will look at how many we've got
and adjust according to yes. The people
that have been detained,
I don't know. Right now I
don't have that answer. Do
you have a number of the people
that are detained right now?
I don't even know that.
There are several people at this
point and I'm aware there was a
large police present at the gas station
earlier when I was walking over.
Is there anything to that?
Nothing other than
our past experience has been we
have large crowds on the beach
and they come off the beach.
They typically gather in parking lots
or they'll go to the gas statio.
So we just. To get ahead of tha,
we moved our law enforcement presence
to the beach or from the beach to the
parking lot to the gas station parking lot,
just in case it followed the sae
pattern that it has in the past.
Chief, has any weapon been recovered?
We have weapons recovered,
but we cannot say the day were e
weapons involved in the inciden.
Weapons, firearms, correct.
What type of firearms, I'm not .
Can you explain why both the
Ben Sawyer Bridge and IP
connector were both closed?
Where it was there some
sort of search going on? No,
there wasn't a search necessariy
when they were closed. I know
that the Ala Palms Connector
was closed due to the collision
that happened on the other side.
I'm not sure what have we've been, sorry.
Or other than maybe it was just
trying to alleviate the pressuro
get the traffic off of the isla?
Tell us more about the collision that
happened on the ITI don't have e
information on that.
It was on the Mount Pleasant sie
and I it was just, I believe it
was an ambulance, it was movingt
I don't have any information with it.
Are you is our investor still looking
for a shooter or do you believe
that the shooter is in custody?
We have several investigators ar
they're looking at every possible Ave.
to figure out if we can identify
somebody that may have been involved,
if maybe the people we have
were involved, if they were not,
we would want to figure out who might
have been the individual involvd
in this year. Have shell casings
been recovered from the beach?
We've recovered evidence from te
beach of different magnitudes. o
you know any schools that have been like
tied to this specific senior state day? I'm
not sure off the top of my
head that I could confirm
100%. Do you believe everybody that was
involved was from the local area and not
and a tourist visiting from us going on?
Tonight, is that still going on?
Are you still expecting the cro?
Is it sold out concert?
It was a sold out concert at the Windjammer.
We have not talked with them.
I do know that their staff is
instrumental in helping us to
get people out of the area.
So I'm not sure whether they're
going to continue with that or .
How much longer is the beach
going to be closed? How much?
How much longer are you guys
expecting to be out here?
So I believe they're just now
finishing up the beach evidence
collection and so I would imagie
that it will be opening up soon.
When can when would you all be able to
provide an update say that and see if
the shooters in custody would wn
would you all be available for?e
wouldn't, we wouldn't make that
update until we knew that we
had the individual in custody.
So I couldn't give you a
timeline on that right now.
I'll take one more question.
Nobody else. Do you remember in
recent memory of shooting on Ise
of Palms Beach?
I've only been here for four ye.
We haven't had one in the four
years that I've been here.
So thank you very much.
We'll get any other information that we get.
We'll feed out as through our sl
media channels and through our public
information officers. Thank you.