Boys football team runs for safety after gunfire erupts near Minneapolis practice field
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The Minnesota Jays youth football team is looking for a new place to practice after what happened Monday at Jordan Park in Minneapolis.
About 50 boys were on the practice field doing drills, when gunfire erupted nearby, "there was like 15-17 shots then a pause and then restarted again," according to one of the Coaches Marvin Thompson.
Coach David Trueblood said, "I was thinking maybe it was firecrackers, but right after I heard whistling and pings bouncing off light poles, Marvin and I looked at each other and the next thing you know we are running and pushing each other and pushing kids to the ground."
Eleven-year-old Justin Stewart was on the field and he was scared, "we were all around each other making sure nobody got hit from bullets." Cassandra Cadotte is his mom, "I was yelling at the boys lay down, everybody get down, it was horrible."
The coaches said they rushed the boys over to a safe spot behind a brick wall and loaded them onto a team van and headed out of the area. Coach Thompson said, "it was crazy I never experienced anything like that before with that many kids out here and being helpless my son and my nephew were out here, I had 50 sons out here."
Coach Trueblood said no one was hurt yet, "it's unfortunate I stayed in the community for 30 years, I played football in the same park as a kid and this is something we wanted to give back to the community, we were trying to teach kids the right thing, we understand what is going on around us we actually need police because it's going to be chaotic this summer."
Cassandra Cadotte summed up the scare like this, "they want to put other people's lives in danger they have no remorse, they don't care, they should do something that helps the community not hurts the community, we're already hurting."
No one has been arrested. The Minnesota Jays will hold a team bonding barbecue Wednesday at a different location as they look for a new practice field. A gofundme has been set up.