MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Memphis police are searching for suspects in a double shooting outside an Orange Mound nightclub Tuesday night.
Two people were shot when police say four men opened fire on a crowd in front of His-Hers Lounge on Douglass Avenue just after 11 p.m.
One of those victims is now fighting for his life, according to loved ones.
The night was just coming to an end as people left the club, but the fun quickly turned to terror when club-goers found themselves enjoying a drink one second and dodging bullets the next.
“It’s going way downhill, to be honest with you. It’s going way downhill,” one neighbor told WREG. “It ain’t the same it used to be.”
Witnesses tell investigators four men started shooting at the crowd from the Airways Viaduct in front of the club, hitting James Johnson, 57, and Aleane Holliman, 64, and leaving several cars riddled with bullets.
“It’s getting worse all over. Not just here in Orange Mound or here in the city Memphis,” said Jessie Williams, who owns an apartment complex next door.
There’s a sense of fear in the neighborhood – a lot of people WREG tried to talk to Wednesday were too scared to go on camera, even with their identities concealed.
One woman said she hid inside her house with her grandchild when the shots rang out, waiting for the chaos to end.
But for Williams, living in fear simply isn’t an option.
“I don’t fear for my life in no area because I know I’ve got a dying day and I’m not going to leave here before that day comes,” he said.
And many neighbors admit the sounds of gunfire on their block don’t surprise them anymore.
“I’m not nosy,” one man, who didn’t want his name used, told WREG. “If some shooting’s going on at night, I ain’t coming out to try to see who done it.”
Johnson’s family said he was hit four times and is in critical condition, but that they’re just glad he’s alive.
As for Holliman, the other victim and a friend of Johnson’s, his family says she was released from the hospital Wednesday morning.
If you know anything that could help police, call Crime Stoppers at 528-CASH.
