6 a.m. UPDATE:
FORT WALTON BEACH — The identities of the two men involved in a fatal shooting Thursday afternoon have not been released. Officials with the Fort Walton Beach Police Department said notifications have been made and expect to release names later today.
The men were found around 3:15 p.m. in a Saturn pulled over at the intersection of West Audrey Drive and Sullivan Street, according to Sgt. Matt Holt with the Fort Walton Beach Police Department.
The passenger of the vehicle was pronounced dead when officials arrived. The driver was taken to Sacred Heart Hospital with what Holt said are not life-threatening injuries. The two men were described by Holt as young adults from Fort Walton Beach.
Calls for the shooting originally came from Spanish Villas Condominiums on Marshall Drive around 3 p.m. Holt said officials believe there are other people involved in the shooting and an investigation is under way.
“We’re going to find them, it’s just a matter of time,” Holt said.
Any one with any information on the incident is asked to call Det. Tracy Hart at 850-833-9537.
PHOTOS: View photos from the scene where the victims were found >>
VIDEO: View a video of the crime scenes >>
VIDEO: Reader-submitted video of the chopper landing >>
“If anybody has other information or witnessed anything, any pertinent information into the investigation, we want them to call,” Holt said.
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 Sacred Heart Hospital, according to Fort Walton Beach firefighters.
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.”