Police are still investigating a shooting Saturday night that injured six teenagers in downtown Chattanooga near 100 Cherry St. and 100 Walnut St.
Police confirmed Monday in a news release that five of the six victims, two females and three males, were just 15 years old. A sixth victim was a 13-year-old boy. Two of the teens are in critical condition, while the rest sustained injuries that were not life-threatening.
Officials said they believe the 10:48 p.m. shooting incident began as an altercation between two groups of teenagers. Police were patrolling the area when they heard gunshots. They immediately began rendering aid to the victims while other officers secured the scene, the release said. The six victims were transported to the hospital.
Later, police learned that two individuals from one of the groups shot at the other group, targeting one or two people, the release said. However, police believe the majority of the victims were unintended targets and got caught in the crossfire.
At a Sunday news conference, Chattanooga Mayor Tim Kelly expressed heartbreak and anger over the shooting. Police Chief Celeste Murphy asked for members of the public to provide help in the investigation by calling in tips at 423-643-5100 or via the department's new Atlas One app.
On Saturday night, Patrick Hickey was driving for Uber when he said he heard about two dozen gunshots. A group of teenagers came sprinting around the corner.
"I just saw kids and teenagers running for their lives to get away from it. Some of them tripping on the ground. At that point, I didn't know how many had been hit. It was an intense situation," Hickey said in a Monday phone interview.
After the gunfire stopped, Hickey left his car and started administering first aid to a boy who had been shot in the stomach.
"I'm a [firefighter]. I'm used to running in the direction opposite of what everybody else is running, just because it's in my nature for me to do that. And I couldn't just drive off knowing that there were kids hurt," Hickey said.
Hickey found a shirt in his car and wrapped it around the boy's stomach.
"He was saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God.' And he was saying for the medics to hurry up because he was scared," Hickey said.
Hickey said he stayed with the boy until EMS arrived and then went to another nearby victim, a 15-year-old female who had been shot in the head.
"She wasn't saying anything," he said.
While Hickey has responded to many emergency situations, he said witnessing children wounded by bullets was especially hard.
"I mean, they're the age of my nieces and nephews. They're just children," he said. "But being in the midst of all of what was going on with the gunshots downtown, it made it a whole lot more intense, and a whole lot more, I don't want to say emotional, but there was a lot more questions as to why something like that happened, especially in that part of downtown Chattanooga."
The shootings in Chattanooga came less than a week after 19 students and two teachers were killed in a shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, and 10 people, mostly Black, were killed in what police said was a racially motivated shooting at a grocery store in Buffalo, New York.
(READ MORE: Gun violence questions swirl as Chattanooga comes to grips with Saturday's shooting)