Four people who were fatally shot at a South Carolina high school alumni celebration early Sunday have been identified.
The dead, all South Carolina residents, were Kashawn Glaze, 22, of Beaufort; Chiraad Smalls, 33, of Beaufort; A’shan’tek Milledge, 22, of Burton; and Amos Gary, 54, of St. Helena, Beaufort County Chief Deputy Coroner Shane Bowers said in a statement Monday.
Willie Turral, owner of Willie's Breakfast Bar and Grill on historic St. Helena Island, told WJCL-TV of Savannah, Georgia, it was hosting an alumni celebration for graduates of local Battery Creek High School.
He said one of the people killed was a security guard at the venue. The bar had hosted other high school alumni groups over a busy weekend for homecoming season parties, Turral said.
An alumni association for Battery Creek High School did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Turral said he was inside the packed bar and grill when he heard gunfire outside at around 12:50 a.m. Sunday.
"I could hear what sounded like machine gun fire," he said, according to WJCL. "It was just mayhem, tragedy outside. ... Bodies on the ground, people just trying to duck for cover."
The Beaufort County Sheriff's Office said arriving deputies found several people who had been shot. Four were dead at the scene and four others were hospitalized in critical condition, the sheriff's office said earlier.
At least 20 people were believed to have been injured, the office said. Deputies determined "hundreds of people" were at the venue during the attack, it said.
The office has not announced any arrests, but it said in a statement Monday that it was investigating "persons of interest." A motive and information about what precipitated the violence were unavailable.
The sheriff's office asked anyone with information about the attack's origins to get in touch.
St. Helena Island is a focal point for the Southeastern U.S. coast's Gullah Geechee culture and language, developed among African slaves and their descendants in relative isolation along the Sea Islands and the Lowcountry.
It became home to one of the first school for freed slaves, Penn Center, where a cottage on campus is said to be the place where the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. wrote his "I Have a Dream" speech.
One year ago, the Gullah Geechee community was struck by tragedy when seven people were killed in a gangway collapse on a Georgia barrier island. A coroner’s official said the people who died in the Sapelo Island incident were all in their 70s, except for a woman in her 90s.
It happened as 700 people were on the island, about 72 miles south of Savannah, to celebrate Gullah Geechee history.
Willie's Breakfast Bar and Grill bills itself as a "community pillar" that celebrates Gullah Geechee culture and serves up Gullah-inspired cuisine.
"Prior to the gunshots, it was great," owner Turral said of Saturday night's festivities. "People were smiling. People were dancing."
He held back tears, wondering whether if he could have taken a more proactive role despite hiring armed security at a level he described as full staffing. "It's hard," he said.
"We've got to find a way to make the world better so these things don't happen," he said.
