{"id":167580,"date":"2026-02-24T22:27:07","date_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:27:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/167580\/"},"modified":"2026-02-24T22:27:07","modified_gmt":"2026-02-24T22:27:07","slug":"teen-takeover-that-sparked-gun-violence-impacts-jacksonville-beach-businesses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/167580\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018Teen takeover\u2019 that sparked gun violence impacts Jacksonville Beach businesses"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A weekend \u201cteen takeover\u201d event in Jacksonville Beach erupted in violence as gunfire injured five teenagers, prompting a swift police response and forcing local businesses to lock down, disrupting a nearby music festival and leaving the community shaken.<\/p>\n

The Jacksonville Beach Police Department said the shooting happened near the intersection of Third Street South and First Avenue South.<\/p>\n

Video captured gunfire near a McDonald\u2019s parking lot and shows crowds running as people sought cover.<\/p>\n

Thomas Zavattiere, manager of Beachside Seafood, described the panic inside his restaurant.<\/p>\n

RELATED: Police now say 5 teens hit by gunfire during \u2018takeover\u2019 event in Jacksonville Beach; chaos caught on camera<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cAround like 6:30-7, I saw people running inside of the building trying to hide, duck and take cover, and as they opened up the door, you can hear gunshots going off and that\u2019s when I closed the restaurant down and started locking everybody in,\u201d Zavattiere said.<\/p>\n

Zavattiere said he closed the restaurant to keep customers and staff safe and worried about teens who need positive outlets.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou know, it\u2019s sad that the reason why is because kids just need a better positive outlook to do instead of getting in trouble,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Police said the violence also disrupted a larger music festival block away and cost businesses revenue as organizers and police moved crowds to safety.<\/p>\n

RELATED: What is a \u2018teen takeover\u2019?<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThree blocks away, we have a large popular music festival going on. It\u2019s attended by thousands. So we had to shut that down early, and then organize a way to give them out safely. Other businesses were closing their doors and turning the lights off, and calling 911 because of the chaos.\u201c JBPD Cmdr. T. Bingham said.<\/p>\n

Nearby business owners praised police response while describing the tense scene.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe city did a fantastic job. The police presence was obvious all day long. When the incident occurred, their response couldn\u2019t have been better.\u201d Greg Pratt, owner of Sneakers Sports Grille, said.<\/p>\n

The investigation is ongoing. <\/p>\n

Some business owners said they hope future weekends at the beach end with more customers, not chaos.<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 A weekend \u201cteen takeover\u201d event in Jacksonville Beach erupted in violence as gunfire injured five…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":167581,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[265,116,2130,41130,118,117,78492],"class_list":["post-167580","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-crime","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-beach","tag-jacksonville-beach-police-department","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-teen-takeover"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167580","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=167580"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167580\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/167581"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167580"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167580"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167580"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}