A pickup truck drove onto a field in the middle of a youth soccer game in Wichita, Kansas, on Saturday afternoon, killing a 6-year-old boy and a 35-year-old man and sending 11 other people to the hospital. Five of the injured are children between 5 and 9, ABC News reported.
The driver, a 34-year-old woman from Garden City, Kansas, stayed at the scene and was taken into custody. Police said she’s been cooperative. Two juveniles were in the truck with her. Police haven’t said whether she meant to do it. “We know what happened, but now we’re working very hard to find out why it happened, and we’re not there yet,” Wichita Police Chief Joe Sullivan said.
What happened at the Stryker Soccer Complex?
Police got multiple 911 calls around 3:25 p.m. Central time from the Stryker Soccer Complex on the east side of Wichita. When officers arrived, the truck was on the west end of the field and bystanders were already helping the injured, Capt. Aaron Moses said. Sullivan said people “sprang into action” before paramedics got there, the Associated Press reported.
The boy and the man who died were both from McPherson, about an hour north of Wichita. Police said they weren’t related to each other. Their names haven’t been released. The injured range from 5 to 68 years old. Police said their injuries run from bruises to “extremely severe,” but all are expected to survive.
Who was the driver, and was it on purpose?
Police have described her only as a 34-year-old woman from Garden City, in western Kansas. One of her children was playing soccer at the complex that day but wasn’t on that field at the time. Investigators have interviewed more than 30 witnesses and are asking anyone with photos or video to send them in. Police haven’t released her name or said whether this was a crash, a medical emergency or an intentional act.
“Today is a heartbreaking day for Wichita,” Mayor Lily Wu said, CBS News reported. The city canceled all events at the complex until further notice, and Gov. Laura Kelly sent her condolences to the families.
The BeezLoop Take
A Saturday soccer game is about as safe and ordinary as American life gets. Parents on the sideline, kids in shin guards. That’s what makes this one so hard to take in, and why it’s worth waiting for facts before deciding what it was.
Police are right not to guess. Whether this turns out to be a medical crisis, a terrible mistake or something deliberate, the families in McPherson deserve a straight answer. And every youth sports complex with a parking lot next to a field should take a hard look at what stands between the two.
The open question: why did the truck end up on that field, and will Wichita add barriers between parking and play areas?
Also on BeezLoop: a 12-year-old was killed at a Baltimore youth football game, and the Bend, Oregon, school shooting.
Sources: ABC News · CBS News · Associated Press, via HuffPost · NBC News (video)
