Gunfire erupts in the South Sound, sending kids at two Auburn parks scrambling
An explosion of gunfire at one South Sound park sends kids and their parents running for their lives at another park.
A female teenager and a woman who was pregnant were hurt in the shootout Sunday night at Isaac Evans Park in Auburn.
A witness says two groups started shooting at each other and a lot of innocent people got caught in the crossfire.
That witness tells us she was scared for her young children’s lives, too. She says they were a lot of kids in this park. And then the shooting started.
But the sound was so loud, it traveled across the Green River to a baseball field where play was underway.
This is the sound that brought a baseball tournament at Auburn’s Brannan Field to an abrupt halt, sending kids and their parents running for their lives.
“We got all of the kids down,” said Larry, a parent who recorded the video.
The parent says everyone was terrified.
“All of our kids were down, down and in the dugout,” Larry said. “The team that was out in the field, all laid out across the field. The umpire was down.”
His main worry were his two kids, nine and 16-year-old boys who were in the dugout.
“When I got down to the dugout, all of the kids on my team had my son in the middle on top of him, protecting him,” he said, his voice breaking. “It was a moment, for sure.”
What he didn’t know was that something similar was going on across the Green River at the Isaac Evans Park where the shooting was actually happening.
“So, I just threw my one-year-old on the bottom of the car in the back,” said a mother of two. “And I just hopped on top of, my baby’s five-months-old. So, I just jumped on top of him. At that moment, I just think my mother instincts kicked in.”
That is how this eyewitness says she protected her two young children.
She says they were at a kids’ birthday party. And all afternoon a group of men was staring them down, flashing weapons. Just before 8, the men drove off and someone in the car opened fire. Her relatives returned fire. A bullet flew through her open doors, then this.
“The people that were shooting, the five guys that were there, they accidentally lost control of the vehicle and crashed into the golf course,” she said. “And they ran off into the woods.”
And they disappeared.
She says the pregnant woman was shot in the leg and she will be all right.
As you might guess, Auburn police need help solving this crime. If you know anything about it, you’re asked to call 911.
As for the baseball tournament: play will resume but not at Brannan Field. The person who runs the league says they won’t ever play there again.
