N.C. Little League Game Interrupted by Gunfire, Parents Describe Bullets 'Wizzing By Players' Heads'

North Carolina Little League Game Canceled After Gunfire Sends Kids, Parents, Coaches Scrambling

NBC News

Multiple Little League organizations that participated in a tournament in Wilson, North Carolina, have since dropped out of the baseball event after gunshots were fired from a mystery shooter during one of the games.

The incident, which took place Sunday at roughly 10:30 a.m. local time, was caught on video obtained by news stations like NBC News, ABC-11 and WITN.

In the clip, young players, umpires, and a coach on the field dropped to the ground for cover after gunshots rang out nearby. "Get down, get down!" a voice screamed in the video, as the young athletes ran for safety, one coach even shielding a player with his own body. "Everybody down!"

The Wilson Police Department confirmed that three shots were fired, NBC News reported, one of them landing in the outfield near one of the Little League players. No one was injured.

A gunman has not been identified and an investigation is still ongoing, according to WITN, but police said Monday that this did not appear to have been a targeted attack. They've classified it not as an incident with active shooter but as "shots fired within in the city limits," having found an unoccupied minivan with its windows shot out near the field, ABC-11 reported.

Despite police findings, parents on the scene told TODAY they believe the shooting was far too close for it to be anything but a targeting attack. Coaches and parents at the game described the scene to the NBC morning show a "bullets wizzing by the players heads."

"I still at this point don't know how to explain it to my children," Pius Walcourt, father of one of the Little League baseball players said to TODAY. "Why somebody would act this way, why people would act this way, why there would be these continues acts..."

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The incident scared some attendees and Little League teams that participated in the weekend's tournament enough to decline to return to the tournament in Wilson when play resumed on Monday, according to NBC News.

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South Durham Little League, located in Durham, North Carolina, shared on Facebook Monday morning that its "8-and-under" and "9-and-under" teams would be pulled from the tournament. The league — which said its "8-and-under" Orange All-Star Team was on the field when the shots rang out Sunday — went on to say four of the other six leagues that participated in last weekend's 9U tournament, as well as five of the 11 leagues in the 8U tournament, decided to withdraw from the tournament too.

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"This was not a decision made lightly, but it also was not a difficult decision for us to make," the league said in its statement. "The events were too traumatic for us to even consider having the teams return to Wilson to play."

The league called the incident "a terrifying situation for all involved," in its statement and pointed to the video shared publicly that show coaches covering players with their bodies and crawling through the field.

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"Tragic events such as these are happening far too often in our country," South Durham Little League said in its statement, in an apparent reference to the recent wave of mass shootings in recent months. "We too often think it won't happen to us. Today, it happened for 7 and 8-year-old Little League players, for children and coaches we all know... No child or parent should ever experience anything like this."