Man found dead in Midtown after people in cars exchange gunfire

A person was found dead Wednesday in Midtown's Cooper Young neighborhood after people in cars exchanged gunfire in the neighborhood.

It wasn't immediately clear how the person died, but police were focusing their investigation on a crashed vehicle in woods near the intersection of Central and Cooper.

Shortly before 4 p.m., workers were using chainsaws and a piece of heavy equipment to clear brush and small trees around a vehicle - apparently a gold sedan - that had crashed far into a patch of woods by the Raymond Skinner recreation center. 

The incident led to a brief lockdown of the facility, a city-owned recreational center for people with mental and physical disabilities. 

Once the brush was cleared, police officers gathered around the car, and one took pictures. Officers then told onlookers to move back.

Police Lt. Karen Rudolph wrote an email describing the sequence of events.

"Officers received a shooting call in the area where two vehicles that were occupied were shooting at each other," she wrote. "Later, we received a call concerning a crash at Tanglewood and Central. The male in the vehicle was pronounced deceased. The cause of death is unknown at this point."

A police supervisor at the scene referred questions to Rudolph. 

Eileen Castine, 53, said she lives nearby and had read a firsthand account on the site Nextdoor.com by a woman who reported seeing people in vehicles shooting at each other. The woman wrote that she called 911, Castine said. 

Castine called the violence tragic. 

"I used to live in Detroit and it was kind of normal in Detroit," she said. "And it's starting to feel like that here."

The incident was the third fatal shooting Wednesday in the city. 

Police were called to the 600 block of E. Shelby Drive in Southwest Memphis where officers found a female victim shot to death shortly after 12:30 p.m.

Earlier, a man was found shot to death around 9 a.m. outside Stanton Wholesale warehouse at 3791 Knight Road.

No arrests have been made in any of the shootings as police continue the investigations. Authorities didn't immediately release the names of the dead.

Reach reporter Daniel Connolly at 529-5296, daniel.connolly@commercialappeal.com, or on Twitter at @danielconnolly.