Watch: Army Suspends Rangers After They Fired Blanks Near Crowded Florida Beach

New viral video has emerged showing an incident near a beach and popular tourist island spot off Florida, which the US Army is now investigating. The unusual incident has quickly made national headlines.

Eighteen soldiers with the 6th Ranger Training Battalion were temporarily suspended as instructors amid a formal inquiry into the May 16 incident, which involved some of them discharging their weapons at a public beach. Soldiers shot blanks into the air from a small tactical boat while closely surrounded by civilian boats.

The shots from machine guns caused enough of a scene for people nearby to call 911 - not realizing they were blanks. It all happened at a crowded beach and boating area along Florida’s Emerald Coast, and in one social media video a woman can be heard frantically asking whether real bullets were being fired. 

Many cars can also be seen in one video traversing a nearby bridge at a distance behind where the weapons discharges were happening aboard the Army boats.

Apparently there was screaming and some bystanders ran for cover, thinking there was some kind of mass shooting incident. According to the NY Times:

Earlier that day, the Rangers had gone to a popular boating area several miles away, Crab Island, which is in Choctawhatchee Bay, and some fired blanks there, too, according to city officials.

Video posted on social media showed two small boats with uniformed military personnel in a crowded area near other vessels carrying passengers as well as bathers in the water. In the video, at least one of the personnel fires into the air.

It seems not every incident of shooting was caught on film, but other locations where blanks were fired may have caused more chaos among unsuspecting beach revelers.

"Is this real?" a woman exclaimed.

"At least five calls reporting the gunfire came in to the Okaloosa County Sheriff’s Office just before 3:30 p.m. on May 16, a spokeswoman said," NY Times notes.

A local city official said as follows: "What happened at Crab Island was not part of the Billy Bowlegs Pirate Festival, nor was it approved by either the City of Fort Walton Beach or the Billy Bowlegs organization."

The comment was based on speculation that the firing of blanks by the Army Rangers had been part of a large boating festival which involves mock gun battles and fireworks displays.

"We take this situation seriously and are investigating," an Army spokesperson has said. "The Army will ensure accountability based on the outcome of the investigation."

The large-scale suspension of the instructors, which is highly unusual, may actually delay a training program which had been ongoing.