DURHAM, N.C. — On Tuesday, the minor league baseball team in Durham, North Carolina opened its athletic park to the Little League teams whose seasons ended abruptly over the weekend.
According to WTVD, the Durham Bulls reached out to the teams after gunshots rang out near their field Sunday during their championship game in Wilson. Coaches said the players and coaches got on the ground or ran for safety.
Fortunately no one was hurt, but a round shattered the rear window of a van parked feet from one of the fields. Witnesses said another round was also found on the ballfield.
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Police said they were initially called to the Gillette Athletic Complex for an active shooter, but now, don’t believe players or their families were being targeted. Coaches said with no one in custody and for the safety of the players and their families, they decided to leave Wilson on Monday.
The tournament, which the players had worked toward all year, was canceled, but WTVD reports the Little Leaguers got a chance at redemption Tuesday night.
”This is the memory we’ll have and they get to be little boys and play,” said Lindsey Stephenson, whose son is part of the Bull City Little League. “It sounds cliché but baseball is family.”
Stephenson said after the shooting Sunday, her son told her he didn’t want to play on an open field anymore. She was excited to hear the Bulls were making their field available for the teams.
”I’m glad this is happening,” she said. “Every boy out here comes to a Bulls game at some point in the summer. We’ve got tickets to two more games this summer so we’ll leave and he’ll have this memory.”
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Phil Holmes, the president of the South Durham Little League, said the gunfire interrupted what should have been a proud moment for the players.
”This is the end of what should’ve been a celebratory summer for them, competing for a state championship at a great facility in Wilson, and it was ruined by this horrific incident,” Holmes told WTVD.
He said the Bulls reached out after they saw what happened and offered his Little Leaguers and others the night to heal.
“I just hope these kids will continue to play this game and not allow this to get in their way,” he said.
On Tuesday, the Wilson Police Department said it was still looking through the baseball complex grounds, along with the surrounding woods and fields. Several teams in the department are working together on the case, and detectives are looking through camera footage and interviewing witnesses, police said.
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