Palm Beach Gardens Football Game Shooting

WELLINGTON — Two adults were shot Friday night — one injured critically — at a football game between Palm Beach Central and William T. Dwyer high schools, authorities said. The gunfire sent players and fans screaming and stampeding in panic.

Authorities said that they did not have anyone in custody, but did disclose that the victims were adult males.

FHP spokesperson Lt. Alvaro A. Feola said in a statement early Saturday that both victims remain hospitalized, and one is critical condition. No information about the condition of the second victim was given.

The Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office and School District said Friday night that the victims were not students and said the shooting might have occurred outside the stadium at Palm Beach Central High, located on the 8400 block of Forest Hill Boulevard in Wellington.

Shots erupted around 9:10 p.m.

Earlier reports said they came after a group of people "got into an altercation," Palm Beach County Sheriff's spokeswoman Teri Barbera said, but she said that turned out not to be the case.

She also said she didn't immediately have a motive but said it was not "a random act of violence."

Wellington Mayor Anne Gerwig said authorities found one victim on the school property and took him by Trauma Hawk to a hospital. She said the other person was taken by a friend to a hospital.

A helicopter was seen landing on the field as a man was treated on the running track.

Palm Beach County Schools police have asked the sheriff's violent crimes division to take over the investigation.

All district outdoor activities countywide, including sporting events and practices and any field rentals by outside groups, were cancelled for the rest of the weekend.

The teams were meeting for the Kickoff Classic, a preseason showcase of two teams considered contenders for the state championship.

The shooting occurred with Central leading 5-3 and with about eight minutes left in the game.

Robin Shecter, who lives in the nearby Olympia neighborhood, had dropped off her kids, 12 and 14, and was returning for them at the end of game.

She said she phoned them to walk out and "all of a sudden two guys broke out in a fight." She said one of them pulled out a gun "and started shooting and I, I mean, I was in a trance. I couldn't believe it. And one of them, somebody, hit my car. Then I saw what was going on. They said, 'It's a shooter!' I got out of my car, ran all over by the bleachers, looking for the kids."

She said she reunited with the teens and ran back to her car, falling once, and "then I drove out of there."

At the first report of trouble, the game stopped; players and coaches left the field and fans began moving out of the bleachers in confusion. Law enforcement officers with rifles were seen running.

Unaccompanied students attending the game were escorted to the bus loop by law enforcement, and frantic parents who came to pick up children were directed to the loop as well, schools spokeswoman Kathy Burstein said. She said Dwyer players were taken back to their school.

Lynn Monnette had come with her husband and another son to see her son Matt, who plays offense for Central. As the fourth quarter ran down, the normal hum of the crowd was interrupted.

"We heard four pops. It was under where the band sits at the south end of the bleachers," Monnette said later as she sat in traffic trying to get out of the parking lot. Behind her, sirens wailed.

Within seconds of the pops, she said, "shoes were flying everywhere. Personal belongings. And people were screaming and running."

It took only a few more seconds, she said, for a massive police presence to arrive.

"We saw lights instantly," she said. "We're all waiting and finally the school security came through and said, 'We're evacuating. The police want us evacuated. We need you to leave now.' That's when we saw the SWAT people."

She said she was able to connect with her younger son, who had been with friends in another corner of the stands, and with Matt, who'd been herded into the Central locker room with the rest of his team.

"He (Matt) said when he heard the shots he started running off the field," she said.

Dwyer players, the visitors, had no locker room to go to and were led to a corner of the field.

"It was just a normal Friday night game and everybody's playing, everybody's having a good time," said Ivan Najera, a junior kicker for Central. "And then out of nowhere four shots went off by the bus loop area, and kids start running everywhere. Kids from the bleachers were running everywhere and no one knew what to do. It's crazy."

"The game was going on and I was just paying attention and then, you know how fireworks are, I turned around and I thought it was a firework," Central running back Derrick Cruickshank said."You hear a few more shots and then things got real and I turned one more time to see everyone in the stands running."

He said players shed their gear and some scrambled over a high gate to get off the field.

"We were just playing the game, the game of football that everybody loves, but sadly we didn't get to see the game end," he said. "It just came down to the wrong time and wrong place."

Central sophomore Leonardo Moreno, 15, was in the stands Friday night when he saw the football players running off the field for cover.

"I saw people running and screaming and crying and was like, 'Oh my God, what happened?'" he said.

Someone told him there had been a shooting so he squatted in the stands, then stood and started to run. He found his friend and his younger brother before finding a way off campus and toward Forest Hill Boulevard.

There he reached his mother Veronica by phone. Tearful and shaking, she embraced the teens in the parking lot of the Chase Bank at Forest Hill and State Road 7.

Leonardo said this was just his second high school football game.

"I had so much fun at the last one," he said, his voice trembling. "And then this happens."

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Source: https://www.staugustine.com/story/news/state/2018/08/18/two-shot-at-palm-beach/11017915007/

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