Authorities sought Tuesday to determine who fired a gun near a San Marcos park as nighttime youth baseball games were underway there, sending at least one round whizzing harmlessly onto one of the occupied diamonds.
Several 911 callers reported hearing three to five gunshots near Mission Sports Park on Bailey Court at about 7:45 p.m. Monday, according to the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department.
In video shot from behind home plate at one of the baseball fields at the park and posted online by KUSI News, six or seven distant-sounding reports can be heard as a child stands in the batter’s box awaiting a pitch. Just after the final shot goes off, a puff of dirt shoots up on the base path between first and second base, and the players and adults on the field all flee amid urgent shouting.
Deputies, including the crew of a sheriff’s patrol helicopter, searched the area, finding a bullet on one of the fields where children had been playing baseball, Lt. Gavin Lanning said. The personnel located no victims or suspects, he said.
Administrators at nearby Palomar College put the campus on lockdown as a precaution during the search. The security measures were lifted at about 9:30 p.m., Lanning said.
No suspects or witnesses to the origin of the shooting had been located as of Tuesday afternoon, the lieutenant said.
About 200 people were in the park when the gunshots sounded, according to Lanning.
Updated at 6:16 p.m. May 9, 2023
City News Service contributed to this article.
