Quadruple shooting in Indiantown Saturday night causes non life-threatening injuries

Melissa E. Holsman | Treasure Coast Newspapers

Show Caption Hide Caption Crime rate in Martin County - 2017 Every year the Florida Department of Law Enforcement collects data for seven areas of crime. According to their statistics, crime in Martin County rose 14.6 percent overall from 2016 to 2017. GINNY BEAGAN/TCPALM

STUART -- A quadruple shooting in Indiantown Saturday night left four men with non life-threatening injuries and prompted Martin County Sheriff’s officials to ask witnesses to come forward with any information.

According to Martin County Sheriff Will Snyder, it was just past 1 a.m., when Martin deputies responded to calls of shots fired outside Roger’s Market at the 17000 block of Southwest Palm Beach Street, where a large outdoor party was underway.

“When they got there they determined there had been shots fired; they found one victim who had been shot a couple of times. He was transported to a trauma center,” Snyder said Sunday. “Three other gunshot victims were transported by friends or relatives to hospitals in Martin County.”

The man taken to a trauma center was shot in the upper torso, and the other three were wounded in the lower extremities.

The victims were “all males,” Snyder said, who declined to identify them, “because of the complexities of the case and for their own protection.”

“We do fear that there could be retaliation actions taken,” he said. We will be deploying multiple extra units into the field tonight in an attempt to prevent this from escalating.”

The shooting happened amid a large crowd gathered under a tent set up in front of Roger’s Market.

“Several hundred people attended,” he said, “it occurred in the mix of the street party.”

But detectives are are stymied without more information, Snyder insisted.

“We do not have one single witness out of all the hundreds of people,” he said. “So we are in the dark right now as to motive and sequence of events; no cooperation.”

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One gun was recovered and authorities know at least one more weapon was used.

“Without the final reports from the hospitals or getting those projectiles, there’s no way to know if it was an exchange of gunfire or one person doing all the shooting,” Snyder said. “Because there’s no eye witnesses. And we’re still on the middle of evaluating the physical evidence.”

Snyder urged anyone with information to call the Martin County Sheriff's Office at 772-220-7060.

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