A post-game concert at the home of the White Sox in Chicago, Illinois, was canceled after two women were shot while attending a game at Guaranteed Rate Field stadium.
The Chicago Police Department said in a statement that two women had been injured in the incident: a 42-year-old sustained a gunshot wound to the leg, while a 26-year-old had a grazed abdomen.
The gunshot victim was taken to the University of Chicago Medical Center where she was in a “fair condition,” while the younger woman was said to have refused medical attention.
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Footage from inside the ballpark shows a message on the big screen initially attributing the cancelation of the show to “technical issues,” however the baseball club later released a statement acknowledging the incident.
“Two fans attending Friday night’s game sustained non-life threatening injuries after being struck by bullets,” the statement said. “It is unclear to investigators whether the shots were fired from inside or outside the ballpark.”
The White Sox added that its stadium security detail had confirmed “that this incident did not involve an altercation of any kind.”
“The White Sox are thinking of the victims at this time and wishing them a speedy recovery,” the club wrote in the early hours of Saturday morning.
Chicago police said it was now investigating the incident. The department added that officers had responded immediately to the scene when the alarm was raised, and “deployed additional resources while coordinating with White Sox security to maintain the safety of those who were in attendance or working at the game.”
It stressed that “at no time was it believed there was an active threat.”
Friday night’s game was a 12-4 loss for the White Sox to the Oakland Athletics, the second in a four-game series. The Associated Press reported that 21,096 fans had been in attendance.
It is not the first time in recent memory that a baseball game has been marred by fire. In June 2017, Republican House Majority Leader Steve Scalise was among six people injured by a mass shooter, James Hodgkinson, while attending a charity Congressional baseball game at the Eugene Simpson Stadium Park in Alexandria, Virginia, a short distance from Washington D.C.
Despite being put in a critical condition, Scalise recovered in hospital and returned to Congress in late September that year. All the other victims also survived their wounds while Hodgkinson was shot and killed by police.
More recently, a live stream of a high school basketball game in Oklahoma City in January caught the moment following the end of the game that a shooter opened fire in the gymnasium, sending the attending crowd running.
Police estimated there had been around 500 people in the gym and said at the time that one person, a male, had been hospitalized with a gunshot wound.
Update 08/26/23, 4:55 a.m. ET: This article was updated to include further information throughout.
