FORT WALTON BEACH — One man was killed and another was wounded Thursday afternoon during a shooting in the parking lot at Spanish Villa Condominiums on Wright Parkway.
The men drove from the condo complex to Sullivan Street near West Audrey Drive, where their blue Saturn sedan stopped on the side of the road.
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Fort Walton Beach police were called to the scene about 3:15 p.m. The medical examiner’s office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement joined them later.
The investigation was continuing Thursday night. The victims’ identities were not announced and Police Chief Ted Litschauer said investigators were developing suspects.
Chrisken Stone said she was about to turn left onto Sullivan from East Audrey Drive when she watched the Saturn drive by. The windows on the left side had been shot out and the driver was bleeding, she said.
She drove over to the car with her children in the back of her vehicle. She rolled down her window and asked the driver if he needed help.
“It was just instinct,” Stone said.
The driver asked her to call 911.
It was only when she approached the Saturn that she realized there was a passenger in the car. The passenger was already dead, Stone said.
The driver had been shot through the abdomen, Stone said. He also had been shot in the arm and the bullet was still in the wound.
She grabbed a white towel from her vehicle. He helped her apply pressure to the abdomen wound as she covered his arm.
“He wouldn’t have lived if I wasn’t there,” Stone said matter-of-factly. “There were massive amounts of blood.”
She said she kept him awake as they waited for emergency crews. He told her that he had been giving someone a ride and would never do that again.
The driver later told police he was 20 years old and the passenger was 18 years old, Stone said.
Stone quickly filled out a police report. As rescuers tended to the driver, she said a police officer walked to her car and asked her children if they knew what their mother had done.
“Yeah. She just saved a life,” Stone said her daughter replied.
The wounded driver was airlifted from the parking lot of Liza Jackson Preparatory School to a Pensacola hospital, according to Fort Walton Beach firefighters. His condition was unknown.
Residents gathered near the car on Sullivan Street and watched as investigation unfold.
The neighborhood is relatively quiet, with the exception of an occasional car accident or bear sighting, said Patrice Brown, who lives on Sullivan.
“It’s a little close to home,” Brown said. “You always hear about stuff and I always think about those people who say it’s a little close to home.
“I guess it’s another feeling when it’s close to your home. Makes you a little shaky.”
