Bennett Loop gunfire injures one, damages Jeep

By DEUCE NIVEN

    A barrage of gunfire left at least one man injured and a vehicle damaged near Twin City Airport Saturday night, the Horry County Police Department reports.
    Injuries to an 18-year-old Loris area man were described as “superficial,” Lt. Raul Denis said in a news release Monday.
    Officers responding to the area of Airport Road and Bennett Loop just after 10 p.m. Saturday found “multiple shell casings in the roadway” in an area spanning more than 250 yards, with “multiple shell casings and other items of evidentiary value in several yards of residences,” a report by Officer Larry Williams said.
    As investigators worked the initial crime scene, they received a report of a vehicle with blood inside near the state line on Morgan Road, the report said. Police found the Jeep nearby, on Pine Circle Drive in the Green Acres subdivision east of Tabor City.
    Officers were unable to interview the man who was shot and taken by car to McLeod Loris Hospital, the Denis said. They were able to interview the 27-year-old woman who had driven the Jeep to and from Bennett Loop.
    She told police that she had been called, and told to pick up her children from a Bennett Loop home because “an altercation was about to take place,” Denis said.
    “She reported that when she arrived there was a large crowd in the street so she parked and went inside the home,” the news release said. “She heard gunfire erupt and waited until it subsided before leaving with her children and, when she got home she noticed blood on the passenger seat and a strong smell of gas (from a gunshot to the gas tank) but no one in her vehicle was hurt.”
    Police are asking for help from the public in this case. Anyone with information is asked to call the HCPD at 843-248-1520 or the Tip Line at 843-915-8477 (843-915-TIPS).
    Look for further details, as they become available, in Wednesday’s Tabor-Loris Tribune in print and online.