Florida zombie festival shooting leaves 1 dead, 5 injured

One person was killed and five were injured late Saturday when a shooter fired on a crowd at Zombicon, a Florida charitable festival where people dress up as zombies.

The shooting sent dozens of festival-goers, many of them in costumes, running through the streets of downtown Fort Myers, Fla., in chaos and panic, according to the News-Press.

The shooter is still at large, police said.

The dead man was identified as Expavious Tyrell Taylor, 20, who played football at a junior college in Florida. He was dead at the scene.

Four other people were taken to Lee Memorial Hospital with non-life-threatening injuries, police said. Another person refused treatment.

The mayor's office appealed to festival-goers to help in the investigation.

"At an event that draws upwards of 20,000 people we understand valuable investigative information may have been captured on smartphones by those who attended," a Fort Myers police statement said.

Zombicon is an annual gathering organized by Pushing Daizies, a charitable group that sponsors "sending our local youth to art and music camps, as well as keeping the arts alive in our Southwest Florida community," according to its website.

The group said on its website that it was "deeply saddened by the news of what happened within the footprint of our event."

"We take the safety of our patrons very seriously and take precautions in hiring security and police officers for our annual event. Our prayers go out to the family members and individuals involved in the incident." Copyright 2019 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.