Richard Arnold: Shooting at baseball game puts the sport under fire

Jul 19, 2021 · 3m 24s
Richard Arnold: Shooting at baseball game puts the sport under fire
Description

Three people were injured in a shooting Saturday night outside Nationals Park in Washington, DC, sending baseball fans and players scrambling during a game, police said. A fan outside of...

show more
Three people were injured in a shooting Saturday night outside Nationals Park in Washington, DC, sending baseball fans and players scrambling during a game, police said.
A fan outside of the stadium was one of three people wounded, according to Ashan Benedict, executive assistant chief of police for DC's Metropolitan Police Department.
The fan who was shot, a woman, is expected to recover, Benedict said. Police initially said in statements posted on Twitter that four people were shot.
The two other people wounded in the shooting were associated with a recovered vehicle and are now in the hospital being questioned by police, according to Benedict. It's unclear what their exact involvement was in the incident. Benedict also said those individuals were known to law enforcement.
CNN journalists inside the stadium reported hearing multiple loud bangs during the bottom of the 6th inning in a game between the Washington Nationals and San Diego Padres.
Fans fled their seats and sought shelter after hearing the gunfire. Benedict said there ultimately was no threat to people inside the stadium.
"I just want to assure the public that at no time during this incident were individuals inside the stadium attending the game in any kind of danger. This was not an active shooter incident and it's not being investigated as such. Everything took place outside the stadium," he said.
Benedict told reporters that two vehicles were involved in a "shootout" on a street outside of the stadium during the game. Police recovered one of the vehicles but the other remains at-large.
On Sunday, the Metropolitan Police Department released images of the at-large vehicle, which they identified as a gray Toyota Corolla with a missing hubcap on the rear driver's side. Police said the car, seen in photos captured by surveillance cameras in the area, has dark-tinted windows and investigators believed it had a temporary Virginia tag.
Members of the public who can identify the vehicle are asked to notify police via their tip line.
The Washington Nationals had fans shelter-in-place inside the stadium during the immediate aftermath of the gunfire, according to Scott Fear, vice president for public safety and security for the Washington Nationals. A message on the scoreboard shortly after the shooting told fans to remain inside the baseball park, but it was later updated to say it was safe for fans to leave the stadium.
"We held shelter in place for approximately 10 to 15 minutes. At that time we said fans were allowed, not that they had to, but they were allowed to exit through Center Field Gates and Right Field Gates on the other side of the stadium, because MPD had let me know that it was safe enough that they could go outside, out of the gate that way," said Fear.
In a joint statement Sunday, Washington, DC, Mayor Muriel Bowser and Mark D. Lerner, managing principal owner of the baseball team, condemned the shooting, saying they "stand together against senseless acts of gun violence in the city we love."
"Gun violence -- no matter where it occurs in our city -- is unacceptable and will not be tolerated."
A police spokesperson said the Metropolitan Police Department had increased patrols in the area surrounding the park.
The remainder of the game was suspended until Sunday afternoon. Game 3 of the Nationals-Padres series, which was scheduled for Sunday afternoon, was played after the conclusion of the suspended game.
'It's happening everywhere'
Washington Nationals Manager Dave Martinez told reporters Sunday that when he heard the gunshots, he believed they were coming from above the the third base dugout.
"I didn't know what was going on, but I wanted to make sure that everybody was safe," he said at a news conference. "As things went on, fairly quickly I heard that it was outside the stadium. But like I said, everything happened so quickly, fans started getting a little bit frantic, which we don't blame."
"When a situation like that arises you try to follow...
show less
Information
Author Rocco Zanni
Organization Spreaker Staff
Website -
Tags
-

Looks like you don't have any active episode

Browse Spreaker Catalogue to discover great new content

Current

Podcast Cover

Looks like you don't have any episodes in your queue

Browse Spreaker Catalogue to discover great new content

Next Up

Episode Cover Episode Cover

It's so quiet here...

Time to discover new episodes!

Discover
Your Library
Search