Video shows children running for cover as dozens of gunshots ring out at junior baseball game
Vehicles parked nearby were damaged
Panic broke out at a junior baseball game in South Carolina after gunshot sounds forced both spectators and players to run for cover.
The incident reportedly took place during a Dixie Youth league baseball game in North Charleston, the third largest city in the state, on Monday evening.
A video shared with ABC News 4 showed players, coaches, and spectators running off the baseball field at Pepperhill Park following the gunshot sounds.
Police from the North Charleston Police Department were called immediately to the scene and no injuries were reported.
Witnesses reportedly told police that two groups of teenagers in seperate vehicles had engaged in a fight in a parking lot near the baseball field before firing at one another.
It was not clear how many rounds were fired or how many firearms were involved.
Blake Ferguson, a parent who was watching the junior baseball game, also shared images with the news station of his car with a bullet hole in the front. It was thought to be among three cars damaged.
Coaches had already petitioned for the games to be moved away from the park because of local violence, which according to ABC News 4 included a weekend shooting that killed two individuals, one of whom was aged 16.
The mayor of North Charleston, Mayor R. Keith Summey, told reporters he was “appalled by what he heard and saw” after seeing the video.
The police department meanwhile promised to investigate the incident “to the fullest extent of the law and will do everything in their power to locate and arrest the individuals involved in this heinous and reckless act”.
An investigation is ongoing.