INDIANAPOLIS — IMPD is seeking the public’s help in unraveling a parking lot shooting after a youth football game Saturday night that left two adults wounded.
”At this time IMPD believes there may have been two individuals involved in gun violence that evening,” said Officer Thomas Thompson. ”I can confirm that from what information we have gathered that the individuals appear to have been from both opposing teams.”
Detectives are combing through security video and social media accounts to piece together the evidence that explains what happened following the final whistle well after dark outside of Cardinal Ritter High School’s football field.
”IMPD has been continuously going through surveillance footage at this time and we ask that if anybody has any additional footage please come forward,” said Thompson.
The game between 11-year-olds pitted the Indy Firehawks versus Next Elite.
The Next Elite team and the Next Level Sports Youth League that sanctioned the game are owned by Ron Hayes.
A man who resembled the league’s owner answered the door at his home Sunday and said he was not Hayes, denying any knowledge of the incident.
Wounded were Travon Smith, a Firehawks coach, and James Johnson-Beverly.
IMPD detectives are seeking to recover weapons and consistent accounts of the shooting.
Anthoney Hampton said that gun violence is an omnipresent issue. Hampton works for Like No Other, an organization that has partnered with Indy Parks and IMPD for several years to open rec centers and gymnasiums on Friday nights to provide a safe environment for hundreds of teens who play supervised basketball.
”You gotta know who you’re dealing with. Gun violence travels,” Hampton said. ”We would hope that these events would be safe but if you don’t have security, anything can happen.”
Parents who attended the Saturday night game told FOX59/CBS4 that there was no security on site.
”These events do have to have security,” said Thompson, “and again we have an incident where there wasn’t someone on site that could be that security figure.”
”A lot of these leagues take in a whole lot of money so paying off duty officers shouldn’t be a problem,” said Hampton. ”The optics alone if you got a couple police cars on the parking lot that makes people think differently.”
Firehawks parents said that there had previously been bad blood between the two teams, and observers said much of it originated with adults.
”Those situations shouldn’t take place. If there’s bad blood there shouldn’t be a competition at all,” said Hampton. “The parents do a lot of barking during games. They do a lot of barking on social media. And I think that they believe it is about them more than their children.
”They stole from the children and put the children in harm’s way for their benefit,” he said. ”The parents are just as mentally distraught and messed up as the children are.”
A coach from the Firehawks told FOX59/CBS4 that the team’s adults were urging parents to seek counseling for their children as a result of the shooting.
