The incident took place during a boxing match at the Barclays Centre. (Unsplash)
Sixteen people were injured at the Barclays Centre in New York on Sunday after loud noise triggered rumours of an active shooter. The incident took place on Sunday when the crowd gathered at the arena for a boxing match.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka was among those who had gathered at the Barclays Centre and tweeted about her harrowing experience.
Watch the video:
Gunshots at the Barclays centre #TankRollypic.twitter.com/1kgwgKca2f
— Smirkey (@CryptoSmirkey) May 29, 2022
According to New York Police Department (NYPD), the stampede occurred at around 1.05 am, when a boxing match between Gervonta Davis and Rolando Romero was just about the finish, The Hill reported.
An NYPD spokesperson said there were shouts about a shot fired, with the crowd “attempting to flee everywhere”, The Hill further said in the report.
“After investigating the incident at the Barclays Center this morning, we determined that no shots were fired,” the NYPD 78th Precinct, which serves the Park Slope section of Brooklyn, said in a tweet on Sunday.
The source of the sound is still not clear, NYPD spokesperson later told CNN.
Osaka, who was watching the match, tweeted that she was “petrified” when she saw the commotion.
“I was just in the Barclays center and suddenly I heard shouting and saw people running, then we were being yelled at that there was an active shooter and we had to huddle in a room and close the doors,” she said in the Twitter post.
Later, in a detailed statement, the four-time tennis grand slam champion said: “I was lucky enough to have a security guard with me and I cannot imagine having to navigate through that situation by yourself, let alone being a child and it not being a false alarm.”
current thoughts. pic.twitter.com/U1xQJa4jF1
— NaomiOsaka大坂なおみ (@naomiosaka) May 29, 2022
Amanjot Kaur, one of those who were injured in the incident, told The New York Times that she had heard “pop-pop” sounds as she was leaving the Barclays Centre and that someone had screamed that there was a shooter with a gun.
She was knocked to the ground and trampled. “I thought I was gone for,” she told the NYT.
The incident took place less than a week after an 18-year-old killed 21 people – 19 of them children – as he opened fire at Robb Elementary in Uvalde, Texas. It was one of the worst mass shooting incidents in the US in the last decade and revived the debate around having stringent gun control laws.