ISLE OF PALMS, S.C. — Some of the victims who were shot on a South Carolina beach on Friday have been released from the hospital, officials said during a briefing on Saturday morning.
Chief Kevin Cornett said that, of the six people who were shot on Friday, most were between 15 and 16 years old with another, who was not involved in the dispute but was struck by gunfire, in her 30s.
He added that the teens who were wounded were part of the group but it's unclear if they were involved in the fights that preceded the shooting.
"All of them have non-life-threatening injuries, most of them have already been released from the hospital," he said.
Cornett said the injuries in the shooting were generally to extremities.
"Most of them were to limbs - hands, shoulders, I think we might have had one that was to the thigh area and then one that was to the abdomen," he said.
Police now believe students from several schools in the region were involved in the incident, having previously suggested that they were at the beach for "senior skip day."
"We're still looking into what schools exactly," Chief Cornett said. "We do know that schools from Berkeley County, Dorchester County, and Charleston County were involved with the incident."
He said they're still trying to determine "how big the net was cast for people to come to this."
In the investigation that followed the shooting, police said they had detained several people in connection to potential weapons charges. In Saturday's update, he announced that two of those people, an 18-year-old and a 16-year-old, had been charged with weapon possession charges.
The 16-year-old was charged with possession of a stolen firearm and unlawful carry of a firearm. The 18-year-old was charged with possession of a firearm in the municipal parking lot.
However, at this time, police are not sure if they were connected to the actual gunfire.
As the investigation continued, Chief Cornett said that anyone who may have information or video in the area around the time of the shooting should call the tip line at 843-529-3750.
Sheriff Kristin Graziano also urged that people come forward, adding that they had issues getting witnesses to speak after the shooting.
"There is absolutely no reason to be carrying a gun to the beach. And you have innocent bystanders that were victims of that," Sheriff Graziano said. "So please, families, parents, school officials, if you know who was on the beach; if you participated on the beach - I guarantee they know something and they're just not telling us."
The chief took a moment to thank the many agencies who responded after the shooting as well as the Charleston County Sheriff's Office which was already assisting on the beach before the shooting and when fights began breaking out.
"Without that response from all those individuals this could have been totally different," he said. "But, because of all those relationships that we have, everybody was able to get here and diffuse this as quickly as possible and make it safe."
Meanwhile, the road ahead for the department will involve finding ways to stop anything like Friday's violence from happening going forward.
"I can tell you that we will work with our partners like we've been doing and we will do our best to keep this as safe as possible," the chief said. "We will look at what took place and see what we can do in the future to prevent it from that maybe we didn't do this time but we could do in the future."