LUFKIN, Texas — Officials have identified the man who was struck by a stray bullet from celebratory gunfire during New Year's festivities.
Danny McKenna, 67, of Nacogdoches, was identified as the man who was hospitalized after an overnight shooting in the 2200 block of North Raguet Street Monday. He remains in critical but stable condition at a Tyler-area hospital as of Tuesday morning, according to the city of Lufkin.
"He is continuing to recover from the incident that occurred just after midnight yesterday," the city of Lufkin said.
It was just after midnight when something no one ever expected to happen did in the northwest area of town. Lufkin resident Grace Ann Wilson was home when she noticed there were more than just fireworks going off outside.
"I had gotten up and all of a sudden looked and there were like four police cars," Wilson said. "I was there for about an hour and a half, and then at about probably an hour and 15 minutes a fire truck followed by an ambulance are flying into town."
Just like her neighbors, Wilson found out about the incident the next day on social media. Another Lufkin resident, Teresa Garcia, lives down the street and said she and her family saw the scene after returning home last night at two in the morning.
"We did see that there was a lot of commotion going on over there," Garcia said. "But we do hear a lot of gunfire here a lot at night and we have a lot of issues like cars racing in the middle of the night."
Although Garcia said her family hears a lot of noises at night, another resident in the area, Kasandra Del Toro, said they don’t typically see incidents like this happen in this part of town.
"It's pretty quiet and just peaceful here," Del Toro said. "I mean, there's nothing really happening."
The investigation is ongoing, the city said.