5 Shot At 'Crab Festival': 1 Killed During Williston, Fla., Street Parties

Last weekend during Williston, Florida's annual "Crab Festival", an unsanctioned food and street party which draws thousands to the town, five people were shot, one of whom died. Local news identified the victim as Barry Barney, 36. Police arrested Devonte Tremaine Ocasio, 19, as a suspect in the shootings, and on Monday he appeared in a Marion County courtroom for the first time to hear charges against him. These include attempted first degree murder, discharge of fire arm with injury, aggravated of assault with a firearm and possession of a firearm. Ocasio is currently being held on a $1.5 million bail.

Shots were heard at around 8 p.m. on Saturday night at the Crab Festival, a series of street parties which were said to have attracted about 10,000 people this year. The three-day event is unsanctioned and has no official organizer but has been held on the fourth weekend in April for about two decades. Participants host parties in the yards of their individual properties, though crowds usually swell until they spill over into the street. The volume of vendors, people and vehicles this year, as every year, forced the closure of several roads in Levy County, which has only about 40,000 residents.

In addition to law enforcement, ambulances and a medical helicopter were on hand at the event. But after deputies heard gunshots, large crowds reportedly prevented ambulances from reaching the gunshot victims. Deputies transported some of them in private vehicles and patrol cars. Barney was taken to a hospital in the helicopter but died en route.

The spokesman of the county sheriff, Lt. Scott Tummond, told journalists that his office believed the shooting might have been drug-related and said that the festival had become such a problem for law enforcement in recent years that the sheriff's office had to call in manpower from other agencies, including the Williston Police Department and the Florida Highway Patrol, to shore up their own patrols.

The Gainesville Press reported that local police's portrayal of the festival incensed members of the primarily black eastern part of Williston, some of whom say that the festival is culturally significant and largely peaceful. A local reverend told the Press that while he had reservations about trying to change too much about a tradition that has been around since he was in high school, he agreed that the event needed to be better managed.