Nationals-Padres game suspended after shooting outside D.C. ballpark

File photo: Pond5

July 18 (UPI) — Three people were injured, including a fan, in a shooting outside the third-base gate of Nationals Park in Washington, D.C., suspending the game between the Nationals and San Diego Padres late Saturday.

The victims went to local hospitals, the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department posted on Twitter.

Fan hearing gunfire fled their seats and sought shelter after hearing gunfir in the bottom of the sixth inning, CNN journalists at the game reported.

“I just want to assure the public that at no time during this incident were individuals inside the stadium attending the game in any kind of danger. This was not an active shooter incident and it’s not being investigated as such. Everything took place outside the stadium,” Ashan Benedict, executive assistant chief of police for DC’s Metropolitan Police Department, said.

The female fan who was shot is expected to recover, Benedict said. Two other people wounded in the shooting were associated with the recovered vehicle and were questioned by police in the hospital, according to Benedict.

A person in one car pulled beside another and they engaged in gunfire, police told WUSA-TV. The cars sped down South Capitol Street, with one vehicle stopped by police. The second vehicle has not been recovered.

A message on the scoreboard shortly after the shooting initially told fans to remain inside the baseball park.

“We held shelter in place for approximately 10 to 15 minutes. At that time we said fans were allowed, not that they had to, but they were allowed to exit through Center Field Gates and Right Field Gates on the other side of the stadium, because MPD had let me know that it was safe enough that they could go outside, out of the gate that way,” Scott Fear, vice president for public safety and security for the Washington Nationals, told reporters.

The suspended game will resume beginning at 1:05 p.m. Sunday, the Nationals posted on Twitter. Game 3 of the series will follow.

“Hope everyone is safe! Just keep the prayers up thank you everyone that help in the front line! God bless,” San Diego Padres star Fernando Tatis Jr. posted on Twitter.

Hours earlier. a shooting claimed the life of a 6-year-old girl and injured five other people in D.C.

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