NCAA BASEBALL
Texas A&M player shot while in bullpen
Taking bullpen in college baseball can be a dangerous activity. With your back to the action, a foul ball always presents danger. But bullets? That’s new.
In the middle of the fifth inning of the Texas A&M-Texarkana vs University of Houston–Victoria game at George Dobson Field in Spring Lake Park, Texarkana, Texas things got a little surreal.
Every baseball player knows that when throwing “sides”, or warming up in the bullpen, there is always a danger of a foul ball coming your way. Generally, it is the catcher who is at most risk, with his back to the action. Very few smaller schools or colleges have their bullpen segregated off with a wall or high fence.
Never in a million years do you imagine that the object hurtling toward you might be a bullet.
But that is just what happened to an unnamed 18-year-old Texas A&M-Texarkana player when a stray bullet struck him in the chest.
The P.A. announcer called out, “Shots fired! Shots fired!” and the crowd, including a group of hundreds of Boy Scouts attending the annual Scout-O-Rama, immediately ran for cover. The game was declared a no-contest as the player was taken to the local hospital for emergency surgery.
Shawn Vaughn, Texarkana Texas Police Department spokesman, said that it does not appear anyone was the target of the shooting. Around the same time as the shooting, police received reports of shots fired in a nearby neighborhood. “Incredibly bad luck, bad place,” lamented Vaughn.
“We initially received several calls of shots fired on Lynda Street, which is in a neighborhood just west of Spring Lake Park. Moments later, we received a 911 call that a baseball player at the park had collapsed and may have been shot. We were able to almost immediately determine that the two incidents were related, so as some officers were at the ball field rendering aid to the victim, other officers were on Lynda Street looking for any evidence or witnesses.”
The police related that after investigations, it was determined that 17-year-old Kamauri Butler and 20-year-old Demarco Banks were involved in an altercation on Lynda Street and both fired weapons before fleeing the scene. Warrants have been issued for both. After searching the residence where the shooting took place, weapons and drugs were found and several arrests were made.
The Boy Scouts of America cancelled the Scout-O-Rama and Texas A&M Texarkana have released a statement that the player is currently in stable condition in a local hospital.