By Joy Bergmann
A soccer game between 8-year-old boys’ teams at Jacob H. Schiff Playground ended abruptly Sunday afternoon after five shots rang out across the street from the match, sending children, parents and spectators running for cover.
“It was a crazy mess,” said one eyewitness father in an email to Jeff Gardner, another soccer parent. “We all saw him shooting…it was nuts.”
NYPD officials confirmed that the shooting occurred at 505 W. 138th Street near Amsterdam around 3:21 p.m. Sunday. No injuries were reported. Cameras in that location captured images of three suspected perpetrators, police said. Police described the suspects as a black male wearing all black who fled northbound on Broadway, a black male wearing a red shirt and glasses who fled southbound on Amsterdam, and an unknown third person. The case is being reviewed by 30th Precinct detectives, police said.
One of the teams playing was the 8 Boys East team from the West Side Soccer League [WSSL] comprised largely of kids from the Upper West Side, according to Gardner. He says the Schiff facility is a “beautiful field” but that some teams refuse to play there due to concerns about criminal activity in the area.
WSR reached out to WSSL for comment. We will update this post if we receive a reply.
