FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — A 17-year-old boy has died after he was shot late New Year’s Eve in Fort Lauderdale.
The shooting was reported shortly before midnight outside a CVS along Fort Lauderdale Beach Boulevard.
According to Fort Lauderdale police, the victim was hospitalized after the shooting. Loved ones who went to the scene afterward told Local 10 News that the teen, who they identified as Joshua Gipson, Jr., has since died.
“I feel like I lost a child, and that’s not even my child,” one woman said. “That’s my best friend’s child, which you know I’ve grown to love him and know him.”
The woman said Gipson was a high school football player and planned to go to Virginia Tech next year.
One witness told Local 10 News that two people were shooting at each other and Gipson was shot in the crossfire.
“There was 20, 30 kids out here maybe, at least,” the witness said.
Some watched the chaos unfold from their hotel rooms.
Logan Wood said he arrived back to his hotel room shortly after the victim was transported to a hospital.
“My heart goes out to the families of the people involved. And I just pray that we can do something about stuff like this,” Wood said.
One man said the shots were fired after an argument in a crowd of young people.
Gipson’s family received a call that he was shot in the back and they rushed over to the hospital.
At first, they thought he would be OK, but he didn’t make it.
“He was a good boy, good person, a good big brother, loving, caring, everything. Literally he’s like a ball of sunshine,” one woman said.
She said Gipson went out with his friends for New Year’s Eve on Fort Lauderdale Beach while his family watched a virtual church sermon from home on TV.
They picked up food to have waiting for him when he came home, but he never did.
His mother is now determined to bring him justice.
“She’s so distraught, loss for words,” her friend said. “It was her idea to let us come here. She wanted this to, you know, be the last time she remembered him.”
A GoFundMe page has been created to help Gipson’s family with his funeral expenses.
Anyone with information about the shooting is asked to call the Fort Lauderdale Police Department or Broward Crime Stoppers at 954-493-8477.
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