Players are seen ducking for cover, inset, at Raines High School in Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday night. Police responded after gunfire at the game.
(Twitter/@andreellis55)
A shooting at a high school football game in Jacksonville, Fla., on Friday night left one person dead and two injured, officials said.
The shooting happened about 10 p.m. ET, 15 minutes after the game ended at Raines High School, where about 4,000 spectators attended, the Florida Times Union reported, citing Jacksonville authorities.
About three-quarters of the crowd was gone by the time the gunfire started, the newspaper reported.
Authorities said they had one suspect in custody.
“The best information we have so far is that we have a single black male shooter, and we are working to get a more refined description,” Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office director Ron Lendvay said, according to the report.
During the game some disturbances and fights took place among the spectators, but Lendvay said it was too soon to determine if those confrontations were related to the shooting.
“It was a great game, and for it to end in violence like this is just unfortunate, and quite frankly, we should all be saying unacceptable.”
The stadium for the Raines-versus-Lee High School game was placed on lockdown as security personnel worked to keep the remaining fans and players safe, Jacksonville’s WJXT-TV reported.
The victims’ names were not released. The fatality was reportedly a young adult male and the injured people were teeangers, one boy and one girl, police said.
“It is shocking. I was actually here, at the game,” Superintendent Diana Greene told the Times Union. “It was a great game and for it to end in violence like this is just unfortunate, and quite frankly, we should all be saying unacceptable.”
The superintendent said everyone coming into the game had to undergo a magnetic detector wand search and that security inside the game area was tight.
“This is a community issue,” Greene said. “I need parents, students to stand up. If you see something, say something.”
“This is evidence that there is a community issue that has to be addressed, and one of those issues includes access to guns,” Paula Wright, a school board member, told the paper.
Friday’s shooting followed by one week a shooting at a high school football game in Palm Beach County, Fla., where two adults were wounded.