Five School Football Shootings in Mississippi

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

This past Friday night the homecomings of three Mississippi high schools were marred by shootings.  One resulted in a single injury, while the other two chalked up multiple deaths.  The following day, Saturday, there were shootings on two Mississippi college campuses, also related to their home football games.  The college shootings left one person dead and four wounded.

The worst of the shootings related to high school games occurred in the town of Leland a couple of hours after the homecoming game had ended, but while celebrations were continuing.  Six people at a block party were killed and twenty wounded.   No arrests had been made in the case.

A couple of hundred miles away in the community of Heidelberg, MS, two people were killed in a shooting that happened on the high school campus while the game was being played.  One died on the baseball field, and the other was killed in the tailgating area near the bleachers.  Mississippi's governor, Tate Reeves, said that one of the victims was a pregnant woman.  One person has been arrested in connection with that shooting, an eighteen year old male.

The third shooting was at South Delta High School in Rolling Park, Mississippi, in Sharkey County.  Shots were fired outside of the stadium at the beginning of the fourth quarter and the apparent single victim suffered two wounds.  He was transferred to a local hospital and reported to be in stable condition.  Two males were arrested in connection with that shooting.

The two college shootings in Mississippi occurred on Saturday just after  each of the games had been completed.   A shooting on the campus of Alcorn State University in Lorman, MS, early in the evening resulted in three people being wounded and one killed.   No arrests have been made.

Thirty minutes after that shooting, one occurred in the state capital of Jackson at Veteran's Stadium.  Jackson State had just finished a game against Alabama State before the shots were fired.  There was one casualty, a youth who was shot in the abdomen and taken to a nearby hospital.  No arrests have been made.

Each of those five shootings was a needless tragedy.  Those nine deaths were pointless and tragic - as were the twenty-five woundings.  The American macho sports culture ran head-on into the American macho gun culture, and shots were fired.  Nothing will be done to curb the availability of guns in our society, that's been proven time and again, and the shameless, deadly violence will continue to spiral out of control.

America makes a far greater effort to control injuries and deaths related to football than it ever has with guns.   If we are truly interested in the health, safety, and futures of our young people,  then guns should receive at least as much careful attention as football.