'Innocent Bystander' Shot Outside Convenience Store, Police Say

The Sarasota Police Department says Markeith V. Laws, 18, of Bradenton, was an innocent bystander who was shot outside of a Sarasota convenience store.

Laws was taken to the hospital with non-life threatening injuries in his upper high, according to police.

According to police, a few hundred people gathered on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way around 3:30 a.m. Saturday morning. As fights broke out somene pulled out a gun and fired a round shooting Laws, police say. It happened in front of Dredd Mart, in the 1900 block of  Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Way.

Due to the large, uncooperative crowd, officials were forced to create a perimeter around the victim and the paramedics while life-saving measures were taken, according to the press release.

Officers and deputies were able to subdue the crowd as the victim was taken away from the scene to the hospital.

There were numerous other reports of shots being fired in the vicinity as officers and deputies were attempting to assist the paramedics, who were providing medical assistance to the shooting victim, according to the press release.

Police detectives are searching for additional witnesses.

Anyone with information regarding this shooting is urged to call the Sarasota Police Department Criminal Investigation Unit at (941) 954-7070 or Crime Stoppers Tip Line at (941) 366-TIPS. 

Detectives have not yet identified the suspect, and stated that, as of this time, there is nothing to link Laws to any illegal activity and it appears he was an innocent bystander.

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