Sheriff’s Office asking for public’s help with information
A shooting in the 2400 block of 23rd Street late in the night of March 14 left one person dead, the Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office has reported.
The victim has been identified as DeShawn Mitchell, 19, of Sarasota, the Sheriff’s Office said in a news release.
The incident was reported about 10:47 p.m. on March 14, an earlier news release noted.
Deputies responded to the 23rd Street location to investigate reports that several shots had been fired, “one of which struck a television inside an occupied residence,” the initial release added.
The Sheriff’s Office K-9 Unit, along with deputies, searched the area, the release continued, “but no suspects or victims were located. Witnesses described several subjects fleeing the area around the time the shots were heard. A red four-door sedan was seen leaving the vicinity at approximately the same time,” the release noted.
Area hospitals were checked for gunshot victims, but none was located, the release said.
Then, at 8:11 a.m. on Friday, March 15, the news release pointed out, deputies were alerted to the fact that a deceased person had been found in the same area where the shooting had occurred.
A map shows that the 2400 block of 23rd Street is just east of Emma E. Booker Elementary School. The neighborhood also is west of North Euclid and North Tuttle avenues. It is in the Newtown community of the city of Sarasota.
A number of comments responding to the Sheriff’s Office’s Facebook post about the incident focused on the fact that other shootings have been reported in Newtown in recent months. Most recently prior to the March 14 shooting, the Sarasota Police Department announced on Feb. 29 that it was investigating a shooting that occurred shortly after midnight that day in the 1700 block of 36th Street in Sarasota. One victim had been transported to Sarasota Memorial Hospital with injuries, the agency noted.
Additionally, a Sarasota man was charged in early February with second-degree murder following a shooting in the area of North Lockwood Meadows Boulevard in Newtown.
Anyone with information about the March 14 shooting is asked to contact the Sheriff’s Office Criminal Investigations Sections at 941-861-4900 or Crime Stoppers at 941-366-TIPS.
The investigation remains ongoing, the Sheriff’s Office added. No other details were released prior to the deadline for publication of this issue of The Sarasota News Leader.