One man was killed, two were shot and 13 guns were stolen in a hellish weekend in the city. It started on Saturday night at around eight when 15 shots were fired leaving a 20-year-old man is dead, and a 15 year old boy is hospitalized in a critical condition. 7NEWS was on Raccoon Street shortly after it happened on Saturday night.
Keith Swift Reporting,
This was the scene on Raccoon Street Extension on Saturday night as the body of 20-year-old Meldrick Flowers lay strewn across the street near his bicycle. The police crime scene team had marked the spot of 14 expended casings. The crime scene team took samples from right next to the body.
A failing street light slowed the evidence collection forcing police to work by the meager light of flashlight, supplemented by our camera light, as they looked for other expended casings which between our light and theirs - turned up number 15 that hadn't been seen before.
Flowers' body was transported to the KHMH where he was pronounced dead on arrival. The news was shocking to his mother Shelmalone Middleton.
Shelmalone Middleton, Mother of Deceased
"I left here after eleven and I went out and when I came back the evening he still wasn't here. I made my little girls go to the fair and I went to some of my friends on the Boulevard. So I called my friends who lives behind Martins, after the shooting had happened, and when they hanged up the phone they called me right back and told me to come home because one of my sons got shot. I didn't come home, I went straight to the hospital and when I was there they still hadn't
brought him yet. I was at the hospital for like a whole hour and a half before they brought him and then they brought him in on the stretcher. I really don't know what went on."
Middleton says her son didn't have any enemies and while Meldrick did spend time in jail for firearm possession -he had changed his life.
Shelmalone Middleton,
"I know he isn't in fights and those kind of things. He is all over the place and he has all kinds of friends. I really don't know what went on, I really don't what went on. Whenever I hear gunshots and thing at night, I tell him to come home early but he says he didn't do anything to anyone so he will come home when he is ready and he goes anywhere where you send him to go and buy."
And when he wasn't home - Meldrick's family says he spent most of his time here inside the Baghdad Studio - which he helped create. They say Meldrick had a passion for writing and recording music. This stack of poems was written in just the past few months. His cousin Ann Requena wrote some of those songs with Meldrick and she says he was a prolific writer.
Ann Requena, Cousin of Deceased
"I remember him as the person who likes to write his lyrics, that is the Meldrick I will remember. When he writes his poems and so he would come and tell me, when he can't fit in a little piece, he would ask me to help him fit it in. Sometimes me and him would just be on my bed and we have the radio listening to things and trying to fit in a little piece in a poem. Last week this was the last one he wrote, this is the last piece we put together.
I don't know Meldrick to be a trouble boy like how people are thinking. I know he is into his poems and he has a studio on Mosul Street where he likes to go."
And Meldrick's mom says her son had dreams of making big.
Shelmalone Middleton,
"He always said he wanted to go to the States because when he goes to the States he will make big money because he will sing and he will turn big."
But those dreams were tragically cut short by a hail of bullets on Saturday night - and his family has left are his thoughts - now immortalized in his poems.
Police are seeking one suspect. Again Malic is listed in the KHMH in a critical condition. He was shot in his abdomen and chest area.
