BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) — Shots rang out at a youth football game on Sunday morning at Emerson Park in Buffalo, leaving a football coach wounded and children and their parents traumatized.
Ilianna Robinson, one of the leaders at the Youth Football Extreme league, was at the game, recording it with her cell phone when chaos erupted.
“Out of nowhere, a lady just said, 'He has a gun,' I said, ‘Oh my God, he's shooting!’ And that's when we heard the shots and everybody ran.” Robinson told me.
AMG Rob, who is also with the league, described how the adults at the game ran toward the children to help them.
“Coaches from several organizations sprang into action," said Rob. "We have some coaches and some parents who were experienced as nurses and firefighters grabbing kids, taking them to safety, coming back out towards the danger.”
Robinson said one of the coaches came to her rescue.
“One of the coaches grabbed me and put me behind the bench and he was on top of me and two other kids," said Robinson.
Rob identified the coach who was wounded as Coach Rell. He is from Rochester and was shot in the shin and foot.
“A good guy, upbeat guy from every time I've seen him. Someone who loves the kids involved with the kids, dedicate his life and his time to these kids,” Rob said.
Buffalo Police Commissioner Joseph Gramaglia described what police said happened.
He said that Sunday morning, 29-year-old Rashaan Mallory of Buffalo, who is on parole and has two open criminal cases, allegedly carjacked a woman on Moselle Street, forcing her to drive him in her car to Emerson Park, a few blocks away.
There, as youth football games were underway, he allegedly robbed another woman of her cell phone and then tried to rob the coach of his chain necklace. Police said he shot him twice in the process.
He then forced the first woman to go with him as he drove away and then crashed into a stop sign a block away on Goodyear Avenue where he was arrested by police.
Mallory was arraigned in Buffalo City Court Monday morning on multiple charges including attempted murder and kidnapping. Judge Carrie Phillips ordered him to be held without bail in jail.
The league’s leaders said they wished police officers had been at the park when the shooting took place.
Gramaglia said that the league let the police know about the games only an hour and a half before they began and that they’re supposed to alert police and the Parks Department about games held on Sundays.
"They were not authorized. They were not authorized to play on that field. Those games should not have been played on that field,” Gramaglia said.
The league’s leaders were scheduled to meet with police Monday evening.
