Youth Shot on School’s Crowded Sports Court

A young man was shot in the head Friday on the basketball court of a middle school where dozens of people were playing on fields and courts.

The victim, who has not been identified, was in critical condition Friday night at UCI Medical Center in Orange. Witnesses said the shooting occurred during an argument among a group of youths on a basketball court, but police have no suspects, Lt. Phil Marshall said.

Games were in progress on the tennis and basketball courts and soccer and baseball fields at McGarvin Intermediate School when the shot was fired at 5:50 p.m. Witnesses said more than a dozen boys and girls near the shooting ran across the lawn, some running into an apartment complex across the street.

Some witnesses told police they saw a young man toss an object onto the roof of a building close to the basketball court. Marshall said officers later found a gun on the roof.

Ernest Hooper was returning a vacuum cleaner to his apartment manager’s office when he heard a single gunshot from the school across the street. Hooper, a 22-year Army veteran, said he ran toward the basketball courts, passing “a whole herd” of young men who were running the other way.

“They took off in all directions,” Hooper said. “It was a mess. None of them stayed with that poor kid.”

Before he reached the courts, Hooper said, he saw a teenage boy at the far end of the parking lot toss a white T-shirt onto the roof of a school building. Then the boy jumped into the back seat of a black Nissan Maxima, which sped away, he said.

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Hooper ran to the wounded teenager, as two other adults who had been at a nearby baseball field for Little League practice were giving the victim first aid, Marshall said.

‘One of them was trying to stop the blood, and I just dropped down there and made sure he had a pulse,” Hooper recalled. “When the paramedics got here, he was breathing. He was gurgling a lot, but he was alive.”

During the chaos, young people were running pell-mell away from the scene, said those who heard the gunfire.

A 46-year-old witness said he saw two girls climbing over the wooden fence of an apartment building.

Ngoc Dao, a 43-year-old Westminster resident who plays tennis at the school almost daily and who also ran to the victim, said he had noticed a group of youths milling around the basketball court shortly before the shooting. The same group had been hanging around the courts after school all week, Dao said.

“There were about 20 to 30 teenagers, and they were having some kind of an argument,” he said. “Three or four days ago, they were pushing and shoving each other, boys as well as girls.”

Chris Tayyan, 18, was playing basketball with friends on a second set of courts in Gillespie Park, next to the campus, when they heard what they thought was “a firecracker go off,” he said. When people started running through the courts and park, Tayyan said, he looked closer and saw someone sprawled on the pavement.

“That’s usually a group of younger kids that play over there,” said Tayyan, who lives in Santa Ana but comes to Gillespie Park for pickup basketball.

Mike Nguyen, 18, who lives across the street from the school, said lately the athletic fields and basketball courts have been frequented by gang members. He walked over Friday with his 15-year-old sister after seeing yellow police tape and a helicopter hovering over his house.

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“It’s getting to be bad news,” Nguyen said, pointing to the people who continued playing sports while police drifted around the park and more squad cars arrived. “It doesn’t even bother people anymore.”

Skip White, who lives in the same apartment building on Belgrade Street as Hooper, said the shooting affirmed his belief that “violence can happen anywhere.”

“It was very close to home, yes,” White said. “But it’s at a school, where children are playing. It’s a place you expect would be safe.”

From the sidewalk in front of his apartment, Hooper watched police hunch over various points in the parking lot and shook his head.

“I don’t care where you are or what you know. Kids with guns is flat-out scary,” he said.