Youth soccer teams in Minneapolis were forced to run for cover after gunfire erupted in the neighborhood during a recent game.
"We heard two cars running into each other—like a crash—and then right after that, we heard gunshots," Alan Goroztieta, the soccer coordinator of Urban Ventures, told the local Fox affiliate.
Goroztieta said the soccer fields were filled with kids when the shooting began.
"The kids that were on the fields panicked. The parents did as well," he said recalling the trauma. "They were just trying desperately to protect their kids."
One coach was injured when a bullet grazed his ribs. No children were injured.
Goroztieta said four or five men ran past the teams with guns in hand.
"For some of [the kids], it is the worst thing they are experiencing in their life," he said. "We saw a few people running down the street and one of them dropped here in the parking lot and she was all scratched up and kept screaming, ‘Did I get shot? Did I get shot? Will you check my back? Check my back'," said Santiago Guachamin, a nearby business owner.
Urban Ventures is a nonprofit that supports youth and families in south Minneapolis neighborhoods.
"This is a place where they are supposed to be feeling safe and forgetting about things like this and I don’t think it’s fair that they’re experiencing these things," said Goroztieta.
Minneapolis police are now investigating the incident.
