Shooting during Turks and Caicos birthday celebration kills Illinois deputy, cops say
Gunfire erupted at a Turks and Caicos restaurant, killing an Illinois sheriff’s deputy as she celebrated her sister’s birthday, according to police and news outlets.
Shamone Duncan, 50, was identified as one of the people shot and killed at a restaurant on Jan. 18, the Royal Turks and Caicos Islands Police Force said in a Jan. 19 news release. Police said Duncan and the other victims were not targeted.
Two others were hit by bullets, police said. A Turks and Caicos resident identified as 30-year-old Dario Stubbs was killed and a 29-year-old man was injured, police said.
“While on the rooftop of Aziza Restaurant & Lounge in Turks and Caicos, celebrating her sister’s birthday, (Duncan) was tragically struck by a stray bullet during a senseless act of gun violence. She was only 50 years old,” a spokesperson for the family told WGN.
No one has been arrested in connection with the shooting, according to police.
“People started yelling, telling people to get down,” her son, Shamon Payton, told WLS. “Everybody got down, and my mom got up. And then, she got hit... Bystanders came and they tried to help.”
Duncan, a Chicago native, was a 20-year veteran at the Cook County Sheriff’s Office’s Department of Corrections, a spokesperson told the Chicago Sun-Times.
“Our hearts are broken for the family of Deputy Shamone Duncan,” a sheriff’s spokesperson said in a statement. “We are in contact with her family to provide any support they need during this difficult time and are supporting her colleagues as they process this terrible news.”
Family members described Duncan as a “devoted mother, grandmother, sister and friend,” according to WGN.
