Ted Streuli's First Watch Oklahoma Watch
One person is dead, three others shot and two others have broken bones after shots rang out at a high school football game Friday night.
“Choctaw Police Chief Kelly Marshall said early Saturday that shots were fired by an unknown number of individuals at the game, and at least one shot during the exchange was fired by an offduty Del City police officer working security for the game,” The Oklahoman reported Saturday.
A 16-year-old boy was killed. A 42-year-old man was taken to a hospital with a bullet wound to his chest; police said he was in intensive care but stable. A 15-yearold girl was treated and released after being shot in the thigh, and two other girls suffered broken wrists and a broken leg as they fled the area.
Astonishingly, that was not the only high school football game cut short Friday night. The game between Booker T. Washington and Bentonville West was called off in the fourth quarter when, according to the Tulsa Police Department, a teenager brandished a pistol in front of a group of fans at S.E. Williams Stadium causing a panic.
“As attendees were running from the gun, the suspect fled on foot and climbed the fence into the nearby Towne Square Apartment complex,” the Tulsa World reported. “During the chase, the suspect dropped the pistol and it was recovered by police.”
In South Los Angeles on Friday night, a school employee attending a Maya Angelou Community High School football game was struck by a stray bullet, the Los Angeles Times reported.
In Waukegan, Illinois, on Friday, a high school football game was moved due to fears of gun violence, according to ABC7 Chicago.
Last week, in Jacksonville, Florida, police shot a juvenile who they said fired a gun into a crowd leaving the First Coast vs. Ribault high school football game when it was called off in the third quarter Friday night after fights broke out inside the stadium, according to the Florida TImes-Union.
Last year, five high school football players were shot, one fatally, following a scrimmage in Philadelphia. In Toledo, Ohio, last season, three people were shot at a high school football game.
ESPN reported 37 shootings at high school sporting events in 2022, leading to three deaths and 34 injuries. In 2021 there were 38 shootings, six deaths and 38 injuries.
“Over the past decade, shootings occurred at school sporting events at least 171 times, leaving 22 people dead and 171 wounded, according to The K-12 School Shooting Database,” ESPN reported. “During the 2021 football season, there was at least one shooting at a high school game somewhere in the country for 12 consecutive weeks, according to the database, which is assembled from news reports from around the country.”