New Years Shooting in Downtown Amarillo Hits Close to Home

Now I am going to start off by saying this is not against any business here in Amarillo. To be honest I can name a few that this same kind of story has happened. This one just hit close to home for me for sure.

So it's New Year's Eve, and my daughter and her friends are making plans. What should they do in Amarillo? They did not have any plans on where to go. I even asked them.

When asked, they said they weren't sure how they would ring in the New Year. I spend the night at home. I am so past the stage of wanting to go out. I just made the comment that I would stay away from going downtown. Then the only other thing I said was about shootings.

Too many people in one location and alcohol. That was just a recipe for disaster. Heck, I was not awake at midnight. I was on Mimi duty and we went to bed pretty early. I mean I was also on vacation so I could do what I wanted to right? I woke up around 3:30 am and I had a few texts on my phone from my daughter.

Now, these are the kind of texts you definitely don't want to see.

She was outside of the club when the gunshots happened. Those that were out in that area ran inside of the club because they didn't know for sure where the gunshots came from. I can only imagine the pure panic at that point.

My daughter was safe and I was thankful for that. I wish that when I had woken up and seen my texts she had said they were fine before I sent a panic text back to her. After following up on the story there were two males taken to the hospital with "serious gunshot wounds." The violent crimes squad is investigating the shootings.

My daughter said that most of the people in the club had no clue that a shooting was going on outside. They were still celebrating the new year. My daughter, on the other hand, was ready to get out of there.

The New Year started with a bang in Downtown Amarillo but definitely not the kind my daughter or I wanted for 2023.