MILWAUKEE — September 22nd was like most fall Friday nights for students at Milwaukee Lutheran High School. Stands at the private school were filled as the football team kicked off homecoming weekend under the Friday night lights.
But the night came to an early end, when just before the 4th quarter with gunshots.
D'Juan Hill Jr., a freshman, was one of the students cheering on his school that night. The day after he told TMJ4, "It didn’t kick in at first that it was shots, but then I see everyone running and screaming."
In a live stream of the game, several shots can be heard as players and other students run away. One student is seen dropping to the ground. No injuries were reported.
"This could have been a lot worse. What if they actually hit someone? What if one of those bullets actually claimed a life," D'Juan Hill Sr. said. "Now that this whole incident has happened it's like now I have to reevaluate the safety of my child."
A 16-year-old was taken into custody in relation to the shooting.
Incidents involving guns at high school football games are becoming more common according to K-12 School Shooting Database Founder David Riedman. He started the database after the Parkland shooting in 2018.
"What gets a lot of attention is the planned attacks on schools," Riedman said. "What goes largely unnoticed is broader, systemic gun violence at schools. Last year there were 305 shootings on school properties, the majority of those were isolated incidents like fights that escalated into shootings."
The incident at Milwaukee Lutheran was just one of four high school football games across the country last week that came under fire. Shootings also happened at high schools in Iowa, Tennessee and Kentucky according to Riedman's database.
Last year, Riedman said there was at least one shooting every week during the High School Football season. In his data, he defines the season as August through November.
So far this fall, there have been 23 shootings at high school football games across the country. Additionally, Riedman said there was a shooting "at a Pop Warner game played at a high school, and one at a high school basketball game" this fall.
"One of the lowest cost things that schools can do to make sporting events safe is to have a plan and conduct training with state and local law enforcement. And that's something parents need to ask their school administrators if they've done it. And if they haven't, why not," Riedman said.
Director of the Wisconsin Office of School Safety Trish Kilpin said every school in the state is required to do a site assessment "to assess their vulnerabilities and prioritize their work for school safety. And that site assessment does include after-school events, playgrounds and other non-typical learning spaces."
It's up to each school how that site assessment is implemented as a safety plan.
Riedman suggests that PA announcers at high school sporting events be trained as part of a safety plan.
"It could be things as simple as a school PA announcer who's working a football game should have cue cards with instructions to give to the spectators. And it's apparent from many of these shootings, many of which are recorded on video, there's no announcement that's made to the crowd," Riedman shared.
Kilpin wants to encourage students to speak up about things they see, whether it's someone talking about a planned attack or seeing another student with a weapon. Students can report tips through Speak Up, Speak Out (SUSO).
"We have many tips sent to us about students in possession of weapons. When students have weapons at a school event, in the school building or at a school function it increases the likelihood of danger. We get many tips about students having weapons on them so we can intervene," Kilpin said of SUSO. "We have to resolve this issue as a community and so what I encourage is for all students to collectively speak out when someone has a weapon, when students are planning a fight, anything that makes them feel nervous or uncomfortable to trust their gut and report it to an adult or SUSO."
Riedman said that preventing these shootings starts with responsible gun ownership.
"The majority of these shootings that are happening, they're teenagers that have firearms that don't really plan to shoot anyone that day but some circumstance happens where they get into a fight and they pull the gun," Riedman explained. "Teenagers are not allowed to buy firearms. That means that guns at some point are being taken from their legal owner. If a legal owner can keep their weapon secure and accounted for, we can prevent almost every school shooting at a school or at a school sporting event. It really starts with responsible gun ownership."
Hill Sr. just wants his kids to be able to enjoy their childhood without the looming threat of gun violence.
"They lost out on a full weekend. They lost out on their homecoming, they lost out on their homecoming dance, all the events, all the things they were supposed to have. No child in high school should have to deal with this," Hill Sr. said.
Earlier this week, Milwaukee Lutheran High School announced that students would be staying home and doing virtual learning while the investigation was ongoing. Students will return to the classroom on Monday, Oct. 2nd. All extracurricular events are also canceled until Monday.
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