‘I was just covered in blood.’ Videos show shooting at Myrtle Beach-area truck meet
A Loris-area truck meet turned bloody Saturday when an attendee fired shots, injuring three people.
The incident happened around 6 p.m. Saturday on Highway 701 near the North Carolina border, according to an Horry County Police Department social media post. Spokesperson Mikayla Moskov could not be reached Sunday for information.
No arrests appear to have been made and no further information was available from authorities.
A TikTok video shows a group of men fighting, surrounded by trucks. A shot rings out and the onlookers scatter, leaving one man on the ground. Another shows an attendee carrying the injured man towards a truck.
Instagram posts advertised a truck meet at that location, known as the Myrtle Beach ATV and Motocross Park. Taquan Mickens of Selma, North Carolina, put on the event with his organization Drippin. Three hundred people attended and the event featured a competition for cars, trucks — including squatted trucks — and low riders, said Mickens.
Taquan Mickens’ brother Tion Mickens was shot in the hand. Another individual was shot in the chest and is in stable condition, according to Mikens. Horry County Police Department said in a Facebook post a third person was hospitalized.
Tion Mickens was helping keep the peace at his older brother’s event. Tion Mickens said he had broken up another fight with the same group of guys earlier that day, and was aware of which people had guns. “I let them know like, ‘look, if this what y’all going to do, y’all need to go ahead and go home.”
Another fight broke out and Tion Mickens intervened. He heard a gunshot and ran. “I just looked down and I was just covered in blood. I thought it was the other guy’s. I just felt like I had got stung by a bee in my hand. I looked down and I was bleeding everywhere and my finger was limp,” he said.
Tion Mickens was taken to the hospital with a shattered ring finger and released later that night.
Taquan Mickens said he’s held 30 truck events in the last three years. “I’ve never had anything like this happen,” he said.
“There was events where I had 800 to 900 people and nobody got into a single fight or scuffle,”Mickens said.
At Saturday’s truck meet, he noticed more people than usual with their firearms. Taquan Mickens hired three unarmed people to keep the peace at the event. Both brothers said the situation could have been more dangerous, as the weapon was fired into a group of people.
Taquan Mickens said the shooter wasn’t part of his usual truck scene. He added that in Myrtle Beach, “what I tend to notice is it (doesn’t) tend (to) bring the best type of people out.”
“I just feel like I don’t need to be in Myrtle Beach to do anything right now. I feel like everywhere else is safe,” said Taquan Mickens.
