Kids run for cover after shots fired at youth baseball practice

LANCASTER, S.C. — Hundreds of children, parents and coaches were in the middle of baseball practice Wednesday afternoon, when shots rang out at Wylie Park in Lancaster.

Ken McKenzie walked outside his home on Central Avenue, and saw people running, and falling down.

"I saw a couple of the baseball parents and the kids. They were all shaken up, ducking and running," McKenzie said.
He heard six shots, and parents who were there said the same.

"They came from an SUV that was on top of that hill," said Joy Belk, whose 14-year-old son has played Dixie Youth Baseball since he was 7. "We were terrified. My son was running toward our vehicle where he thought he was safer. Others ran to the dugout, not knowing what was going on."

Belk said moments before the shots someone drove by in a gray Chevy Suburban or Tahoe with dark tinted windows. They raced by and parents were trying to get the license tag number to call police.

She next saw the SUV on the hill where the shots were coming from.
 
"They were smiling when they drove by us," she said.

Eyewitnesses said bullets hit the concrete seating area behind home plate.

The night before Lancaster police said a teenager was shot in the leg outside the park just before 10 p.m.
It's not clear if the two incidents are linked.

Alana Newton lives right behind the baseball fields, and woke up to find a bullet hole in the driver side door of her car.

"I don't need this," she said.  "If I’d been in that car I would have been hit."

There are no suspects in either case.

Parents told Channel 9 that the Dixie Youth League has used those fields for years, and they've never worried about their children's safety.

The league has canceled all practices and games for Thursday and Friday night, and plans to resume on Saturday.

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