MIAMI (WSVN) - As he recovers in a hospital bed, a young man is telling his story after he suffered multiple gunshot wounds at Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Park, Monday.
“I go every year to the parade, and I always enjoy myself,” Gerome Battle said. “I just want it all to stop, and everybody can be together and be one.”
Battle spoke while wearing a hospital gown, with various tubes in his body. Battle was shot twice, Monday evening, after the parade ended.
“I seen the blood on my hand, and I just told somebody to, ‘Help me, help me — anybody.’ I just needed some help,” Battle said.
The 20-year-old said a fight erupted shortly after the parade ended, and that’s where things got out of control. “Two groups of people, they just started fighting. It wasn’t a long fight,” Battle said. “They threw like two punches, and next thing you know, they start shooting.”
Battle then ran for cover. However, two bullets struck Battle. “What if you would’ve killed me. Then you just would have killed me for nothing,” Battle said. “He would have killed the wrong person. I don’t know you, and you don’t know me.”
Battle is heartbroken that the shooting also happened on Martin Luther King Day. “We have movements [like] Black Lives Matter. The people aren’t going to take us seriously if we don’t take us serious ourselves,” Battle said.
Battle eventually made it behind a pickup truck to get away from the gunfire, and he was eventually taken to the hospital by an ambulance.
Battle has already undergone two surgeries and will remain in the hospital for another week.
Despite all the physical and emotional pain he has been through, Battle said he forgives his shooter. “I just want y’all to know that I don’t hate y’all. I forgive you,” he said.
Battle is a nursing student and hopes to use this experience to one day relate to other victims he may help.
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