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Hundreds flee Ville Platte park when nearly 100 shots are fired at an Easter gathering, “It was chaos”

VILLE PLATTE, La. (KLFY) — Two juveniles and an adult were injured in a Ville Platte shooting on Easter Sunday.

Residents say there were over 100 people at Hope Park celebrating Easter, and everything was fine until that evening when they heard nearly 100 shots.


“Everything was going good, and then all of a sudden, the shooting starts. Here we go trying to fight to get in the house. People are running everywhere. People started to run in my house, running all in the back of the house, and the gunshots were just going off and off. It was scary,” Emily Gallow told News Ten.

Gallow was sitting on her porch across from Hope Park.

She says around eight o’clock that evening, nearly 100 gunshots rang out, and everyone at the park celebrating Easter ran.

“It was chaos. People were just running. They heard the shooting, and they’re just running with their children. And children are just running. It was chaos,” she said.

Gallow says she ducked for cover inside her home, while hundreds of people found any shelter they could.

“People had ran in the yard, hiding behind the cars and stuff, ducking behind the cars and stuff,” she said.

She says one of those people hiding in her yard was a little boy about 12 years old who had been shot in the leg.

“A little boy came in the yard right here. They had a car parked right here, and he was hiding behind the car,” she added.

She says another child, a little girl, was also grazed by a bullet and took cover in her yard.

Emergency responders took both children and another adult to the hospital,” according to Gallow.

Ville Platte police say no one suffered life-threatening injuries.

Investigators have identified several people of interest.