At approximately 8:00 tonight, a crowd of curious onlookers gathered near the basketball court in the rear of the Charles Bartlett Hyde Building, as the body of a young man lay on the ground. The body was barely visible from the roughly 75 feet distance away, where it lay in a yard off Mahogany Street, on which a police scenes of crime vehicle, an ambulance and other police vehicles were parked.
Police searched in the low grass with flashlights for whatever evidence they could find that would assist them in solving this latest murder, the third in the city over the last 48 hours.
At press time tonight, preliminary reports to Amandala are that Myron “Saddest” Smith, 17, was shot multiple times and died where he fell in a yard immediately west of the neighborhood basketball court, which lies just a stone’s throw from Smith’s house.
Apparently, Smith ran into the yard to escape his attackers. We cannot say, at this time, exactly where he was shot, but apparently, he was shot in the head. What appeared to be blood stains were scattered across the basketball court.
Sandra Casey, 47, Myron Smith’s mother, said that before the shooting occurred, he passed his home, riding a bicycle.
Casey said she did not know where Myron was heading.
Neighbors told Amandala that they heard about four gunshots.
Casey said that she heard the gunshots from inside her house. She said a young man then passed her house and told her that her son had been shot.
Asked if her son was a member of a gang or socialized with gang-affiliated persons, Casey said she doesn’t know if the young men her son associated with were gang members.
She said that she does not know why anyone would want to kill her son.
Smith might have been a victim of the gang warfare that has flared up in the various gang neighborhoods around the city in the early days of June. This is the second shooting on the basketball court known as Complex basketball court in the last couple weeks.
A number of shootings have occurred since the most recent surge in gang violence; some of the victims are still hospitalized and three of the shootings have been fatal.
Police on the scene refused to comment, telling us that we had to await an official release from the Police Press Officer tomorrow.