Juneteenth Shooting Remains Unsolved, Police Ask For Help


Columbus police are continuing to as for the public’s help regarding the Juneteenth shooting that injured an 11-year-old boy during the Juneteenth Festival.

According to the Columbus Dispatch, police have charged Lovauntea J. Mickens, 15, with a delinquency count of felonious assault.

Sargent Loucious Hollis reported, “We are still looking into this matter, and we want to make sure we have covered all our bases.”

The victim, whose name police won’t release, was hit in a leg by a stray gunshot at 7 p.m. Saturday, police said.

The boy is still being treated in Nationwide Children’s Hospital and is expected to be released within a few days, Hollis said.

Previous reports has said that the police believed that two other teens were involved, but the report from the Columbus Dispatch did not mention anything regarding this topic.

Juneteenth is a three-day event, also known as Emancipation or Freedom Day. The event commemorates the announcement of the abolition of slavery in the US.

After the shooting Saturday night, police decided to shut down the festival early, meaning that the event wouldn’t continue on as planned into Sunday.

One vendor, Carol Jefferson, told the Examiner that this was not only her first year at the festival, but it would be her last.

Jefferson told reporters that she had lost her son to gun violence, and now she had lost her business at the festival and her sense of community on Saturday to gun violence.

Jefferson told reporters, “It just has to stop. I don’t know what it’s going to take but it just has to stop.”

Gun violence is a hot topic in society today, and Jefferson isn’t the only one that’s fed up with it.

Other festival goers also expressed how upset they were with the entire situation.

With the Juneteenth shooting case still unsolved, the police are continuing to ask for the public’s help and to turn in any photos or videos that they may have of the incident.

[Image via Shutterstock/Naypong ]

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