The Orlando Police Department has arrested 17-year-old Jaylen Dwayne Edgar as the suspected shooter at a Halloween celebration killing two people and injuring six others.
Police released security footage and body cam footage of the terrifying scene showing Edgar walking through a crowd in downtown Orlando in the area of Orange Avenue and Central Boulevard around 1 a.m. Friday morning.
“Within minutes, a second shooting was witnessed by officers south of Washington Street on Orange Avenue,” the Orlando police said in a news release.
Dressed in a yellow T-shirt and jeans and wearing a backpack, Edgar is seen in the video suddenly turning back into the crowd and firing a handgun. Crowd members, some in costumes and some in street clothes, quickly dispersed.
Suspected shooter Jaylen Dwayne Edgar is pictured in the yellow shirt.
Orlando Police Department
Edgar appears to fall to the ground and get back up before he is confronted by a police officer who knocks the gun out of his hand and tackles him back down.
Two victims died at the scene. The remaining six victims were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center in stable condition, police said. Their ages range from 19 to 39 years old. Their identities have not been released yet.
Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith said in a press conference that 50,000 to 100,00 people could have been in the downtown area celebrating Halloween at the time of the shooting.
Smith said they didn’t see Edgar enter any of the clubs when he arrived in downtown Orlando.
Nearly 100 officers were patrolling Downtown at the time of the shooting.
Surveillance footage of the Orlando shooting on Halloween night.
Orlando Police Department
“Whatever his mindset was, he was going to shoot no matter what,” Smith said at the press conference. “He walked by multiple officers. We followed where he came from. He walked by at least 10 officers.
Although a motive for the shooting is pending investigation, Smith added, “It’s unfortunate some people see somebody they don’t like, somebody that they have some sort of beef with, and they take whatever action they’re gonna take.”
Smith also stated that Edgar was previously arrested for grand theft in 2023. It is unknown at this point if he will be charged as an adult for the shooting.
A close-up of Jaylen Dwayne Edgar’s yellow T-shirt worn at the time of the shooting
Orlando Police Department
Newsweek has contacted Orlando police for further comment.
Smith noted in the press conference that it has been two years since the last mass shooting in the city.
On February 22, 2023, Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Colby Lyons, 24, was fatally shot while reporting from the scene of a homocide in a Pine Hills neighborhood.
Keith Melvin Moses, 19. the suspect in the prior shooting, returned to the scene and shot Lyons and Spectrum News photographer Jesse Walden, then went to a nearby home and shot Brandi Major and her 9-year-old daughter, T’Yonna Major.
The city was also where the second worst massing shooting in US history unfolded.
On June 12, 2016, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, 29, shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse nightclub, a gay bar, in Orlando. Police fatally shot him after a three-hour standoff.
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