MIAMI – A memorial for two men who were killed in a Liberty City shooting that also wounded seven others continued to grow Thursday.
Notes to the dead and injured hang on the walls outside the apartment complex where the shooting occurred, and ribbons fill the pockmarked cement where the bullets struck.
Police said two armed men opened fire early Tuesday morning in the crime-plagued Miami neighborhood.
By the time the sun rose, more than five dozen shots were fired and two men -- Kevin Richardson, 29, and Nakeri Jackson, 26 -- were dead.
"I'm just praying for the families that (were) the victims just like me and the people that (are) dead and gone," a victim, who didn't want to be identified for fear of reprisal, told Local 10 News in an exclusive interview. "I'm going to be praying for their families that they pull through this."
The man, who was shot in the back, said it all happened in a blink of an eye.
"I just heard shots. That was it," he said. "I didn't see no faces, no cars, no nothing. I just heard the shots."
Lucky to be alive and wearing a back brace, the man said his quick-thinking may have saved his life or, at the very least, kept him from being paralyzed.
"I got shot in the back. I just fell down," he said. "That's it until the bullets stopped."
As he lay bleeding on the ground, all he could do was listen to the gunfire and the screams for help.
Miami Police Chief Manuel Orosa said Wednesday he believes the shooting was likely retaliatory.
So far, no arrests have been made.