The suspects are seen on surveillance video exiting an SUV before, police say, they opened fire, leaving 2 dead and 21 others wounded near Miami
The shooting stemmed from an ongoing rivalry between two different groups, Miami-Dade Homicide Bureau Maj. Jorge Aguiar said Monday. The intended target was believed to have been standing in front of the concert venue when the shooting began, he said.
A Miami-Dade officer covers a body outside a club that was rented out for a concert.
Shortly after midnight Sunday, a white Nissan Pathfinder pulled up to the El Mula Banquet Hall near Hialeah, police director Alfredo Ramirez III said.
That’s when three people “stepped out of the vehicle with assault rifles and handguns and started firing indiscriminately into the crowd,” Ramirez said.
Several others in the parking lot then armed themselves and opened fire toward the initial shooters, Aguiar said. The end result was an extensive crime scene with two dead and 21 others wounded, including three with critical injuries, according to a police statement.
Surveillance video released by police shows the white vehicle come to a stop in an alley near the venue. Three armed people, all dressed in black, wearing face coverings and with their hoods over their heads, then exit the car and run off-screen. Less than 10 seconds later, the video shows them run back to the vehicle and hop in as the driver quickly leaves the scene.
Ramirez said Sunday the shooting at the club was “targeted” and was “definitely not random.”
The Pathfinder had been waiting in the parking lot for 20 to 40 minutes before the shooting, he said Monday.
Investigators found the Pathfinder submerged in a canal Monday afternoon, police said. The vehicle was reported stolen on May 15.
Shooting left two dead
Bullet holes are seen near the doors of the club near Hialeah in Miami-Dade County on Sunday.
All of the people injured in the shooting were identified as Black and ranged in age from 17 to 32, according to a police news release.
The two people killed were both 26-year-old men, police said. Of the 21 people injured, three are in critical condition, three have been discharged and the rest remain hospitalized.
Clayton Dillard III was one of the two people killed, several family members told CNN.
Dillard, 26, had a 2-year-old son, according to his grandmother. She told CNN that family members had tried repeatedly to call Dillard on Sunday and tried to looked for him at area hospitals. Later that afternoon, several members of the extended family spent several hours at the shooting scene.
Clayton Dillard III, 26, was shot and killed in Sunday’s shooting.
His father, Clayton Dillard Jr., interrupted Monday’s news conference at Miami-Dade Police headquarters, shouting a message to those responsible: “You all killed my kid! You must burn!”
Though Miami-Dade Police would not provide names, Aguiar confirmed that the man who interrupted the news conference is the father of one of the two deceased victims.
Aguiar called this weekend’s shooting a senseless act of violence.
“For you guys out there — if you are watching this and you are responsible for this — look at those victims that you don’t take into account, those victims are hurting, they’re destroyed, their lives are turned upside down,” he said.
CNN’s Laura James, Raja Razek, Amir Vera and Holly Yan contributed to this report.
