Mass Shooting Took Place at Ball Game Meant to Promote Peace

Weekly softball game meant to promote peace between LA gangs
By Evann Gastaldo,  Newser Staff
Posted Jul 25, 2022 12:02 AM CDT
Updated Jul 26, 2022 1:05 AM CDT
2 Killed, 5 Injured in Shooting at Los Angeles Park
Stock photo   (Getty Images / carlballou)

Update: The shooting that left two dead at a Los Angeles park Sunday took place at a weekly softball game that had for years worked to peacefully and safely bring together members of different Los Angeles-area gangs, the AP reports. The league was organized about five years ago by a local nonprofit, gang interventionist Skipp Townsend says. Sunday’s game—which took place weeks after the founder of the league died in a car accident—was between two Compton teams. “It broke my heart,” Townsend, who often attends the games, told the AP. “We have these type of events so we don’t have shootings.” Six people were injured, though only five were initially reported to have been hurt; all are in stable condition. Our original story from Monday follows:

Gunfire erupted during a car show and baseball game in a Los Angeles park Sunday afternoon, killing two people and injuring five others. The activities were taking place in Peck Park in the San Pedro neighborhood when shots rang out "at or near" the car show, per the Los Angeles Fire Department, around 3:50pm. The Los Angeles Police Department said the incident was not random, but rather started as a dispute between two parties near the baseball diamond area, KTLA reports. Those shot, four males and three females, ranged in age from 23 to 54, ABC 7 reports.

The car show was running without a permit, but had drawn a crowd; police estimate there were 500 people in the park at the time, many for the car show or ball game and others for different activities taking place in the park, NBC Los Angeles reports. There are believed to have been at least two shooters. One suspect had been taken into custody as of Sunday afternoon. "I was trying to get away. I wasn’t trying to see who was laying anywhere. I just grabbed the babies that I saw were scared, and we took off with the babies," says one woman who witnessed the incident.

(More mass shootings stories.)

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