At least 16 people were injured in a stampede during a boxing match at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn (NY) as rumors spread of a false-alarm shooting early Sunday morning.
Tennis star Naomi Osaka was one of those caught up in the chaos in the big arena and at least 7 of the injured were hospitalized, according to the NYPD.
Images that circulated on social media showed dozens of people ducking and running inside the arena that had hosted the Gervonta Davis-Rolando Romero boxing match hours earlier on Saturday night.
Osaka said he was “fuck… petrified” when she was forced to huddle in a room while chaos broke out. “I was at Barclays Center and all of a sudden I heard screaming and saw people running, then they yelled at us that there was an active shooter and we had to huddle in a room and close the doors.”
In a follow-up tweet, the four-time Grand Champion Slam Tennis wrote: “I really hope everyone made it out safely as I’m tweeting this we made it OK.”
Boxing reporter Ryan Songalia previously told the New York Post that only press and production workers were still at the Barclays when a fight broke out, some mistaking the commotion for a shooter.
The New York police said no shots were fired, although there was a fight not far away on Atlantic Avenue and Fort Greene Place around 1 a.m. Sunday involving a man who then ran into the Atlantic Mall Terminal.
In a “domino effect”, some people began to run in the same direction, which contributed to the confusion, the police said. “We are used to fights at boxing events, but the recent headlines (of mass shootings in Texas and New York) and the panic of the crowd made many of us worry that our worst fears were coming true,” he said. Songalia reporter. “Fortunately we were able to return to our seats to file our stories and exit safely.”