Two women wounded in Las Vegas soccer field shooting
One or more gunmen opened fire on a crowded soccer field in the northern part of the Las Vegas Valley late Saturday morning, hitting a pair of women – one in the leg and the other across the chest. Neither wound was considered life-threatening.
The shooting, which police called a random act, led to the evacuation of the Teton Trails Park at Bradley Road and Wispering Sands Drive.
“There’s nothing that seems to suggest that the women were actually targeted because neither was standing anywhere near the other,” said officer Marcus Martin, a public information officer for the Metropolitan Police Department. “It was just some moron with a gun.”
The names of the women, ages 39 and 48, were not immediately released.
The woman who was shot in the leg was treated at University Medical Center, and the woman whose chest was grazed was treated and released from the same hospital, Martin said.
The incident was first reported as a pellet gun being fired at 11:15 a.m. But police discovered that several .22-caliber rounds were fired from a handgun or rifle.
More than 100 people were evacuated from the park, both adults and children who were playing soccer.
The Police Department’s Violent Crimes team is investigating the shooting, but no suspects or motive had been identified by midafternoon, Martin said.
The shooting occurred about 45 minutes before gun rights advocates took to the streets in downtown Las Vegas to protest gun control proposals made by federal officials in the wake of the Newtown, Conn., massacre of elementary schoolchildren.
But police don’t believe there’s a connection between the two.
Contact reporter Tom Ragan at tragan@reviewjournal.com or 702-224-5512.
