More details about ballpark shooting, more questions about White Sox’s reponse

If two fans were struck by bullets in the left-field bleachers in Guaranteed Rate Field in May instead of August, it might still have a bigger hold on the news cycle, because … holy hell, how could that even happen. As it stands, the Bears are underway and producing an overload of their own drama (and maybe legally actionable offenses) while the White Sox deserve to be neglected for every other reason, so there’s less to maintain the public’s attention in the absence of any new leads on where the bullets actually came from.

That part still remains unknown, but ABC7 and the Chicago Sun-Times produced new information on some aspects of the incident.

The Chicago TV station interviewed one of the victims, the 42-year-old woman who suffered leg wounds. She’s chosen to remain anonymous, and she gave her account:

“It wasn’t until a couple moments later that somebody mentioned that there was a bullet found a couple of rows down,” she said. “And at that moment was when I realized I had been shot. I panicked. I completely went into panic mode, knowing that there was a bullet fired nearby us. And at that point I didn’t know if it was there was going to be more gunfire. I didn’t know anything. I was terrified. I wanted to get out of that area because I knew somebody in the immediate area had a gun on them.”

She denies sneaking a gun into the ballpark and said she’s fully cooperated with police, who haven’t contacted her since the day after the shooting. She also said she’s never owned a gun, but the police report noted that she possesses a firearm owner’s ID card, which is a dissonant detail.

Perhaps the biggest knock on her credibility came at the end of the interview, when reporter Craig Wall asked her if she’s returned to the park since the incident.

“Unfortunately, I have not,” she said. “There have been several games that I’ve had tickets to that I really wanted to attend. I have not been able to bring myself to go to a game.”

Nobody really wants to attend a White Sox game right now, so you have to question every other part of her story.

Gallows humor aside, you’d think that if police could determine that one of the victims brought a gun into the ballpark and shot herself, they’d bring charges and proceed with the case. Then again, if that information managed to reflect poorly on police and/or the White Sox, perhaps they’d just want the story to fade away.

The Sun-Times story doesn’t have any answers on that front, but it revealed a new tangle in who was in charge. Tom Schuba reported that one of Fred Waller’s last actions as acting police superintendent was demoting John Spellman, the commander of the patrol bureau, because he’d been working security at Guaranteed Rate Field without proper approval.

Spellman had been serving as a security supervisor for At Your Service LLC, the company that guards Sox park and is controlled by team executives, according to law enforcement sources.

There was concern that Spellman might have prioritized the interests of the team over the department and stalled in delivering McDermott’s request to pause the game, a source said. He also didn’t have the superintendent’s approval to work the security job, as required by a departmental order.

The White Sox previously said that the decision to continue the game without interruption was entirely up to the police department …

Scott Reifert, the White Sox vice president of communications, said the decision to allow the game to continue fell completely to the police department, and he acknowledged that officials consulted with the team’s security personnel.

“It was determined that there was no immediate threat, and so the game proceeded,” he added.

… but if somebody working for the White Sox, or an entity tied to White Sox executives, clouded the police department’s response, then that certainly calls into question the team’s credibility. Perhaps that’s why Reifert isn’t saying anything now:

Scott Reifert, vice president of communications for the Sox, didn’t respond to questions. He previously confirmed that Spellman worked for At Your Service.

Even if the bullets originated from well outside the ballpark, here’s an example of the White Sox making their own luck, because it turns out baseball operations isn’t the only department where it’s unclear who reports to whom. The difference is that Kenny Williams trading Jake Burger without Rick Hahn’s knowledge didn’t result in anybody going to the hospital. A potential cover-up involving basic fan safety is a whole different matter, although with attendance already plummeting, it’ll be difficult to separate the effect of one mess from the other.

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