Padres, Nats recall harrowing scene after shots outside park
When the gunshots started to echo all around Nationals Park, San Diego Padres star shortstop Fernando Tatis Jr. quickly thought about the team's family members and friends in the seats.
Tatis bolted from the bench down the left field line Saturday night, helped open a gate to the stands and began ushering a group back to the dugout to shelter.
“Our family, loved ones, little kids. Feel like somebody needed to go get them,” Tatis said Sunday. “I feel like the safest place was the clubhouse and we were trying to get our families into a safe place.”
The top half of the sixth inning in the game between the Padres and Washington Nationals had just ended in front of about 33,000 fans when several shots were heard from an incident that occurred on South Capitol Street, just outside the thirdbase side of the stadium.
But in the moment, no one knew whether the rapid series of shots was coming from inside the ballpark or beyond.
Padres manager Jayce Tingler was on his way to see plate umpire Jordan Baker about a pitching change in a game San Diego led 8-4 and was suspended at that point.
“He’s like, ‘Did you hear that?’” Tingler recalled Baker saying. “I’m like, ‘yeah, I think so’ and it kind of registered what it possibly could have been and obviously it was just a nightmare.”
A chaotic scene quickly developed. As the Padres cleared the field, some fans rushed to leave the stadium while others ducked and tried to hide, looking for cover.
“Everybody running. It was crazy. You couldn’t figure out what was going on. If it was one or two people,” Tatis said. “I was just trying to get to the safest place and get our families.”
Tatis and teammates Manny Machado and Wil Myers drew praise for helping guide — and even carry — fans out of harm’s way.
“The situation changed immediately,” Tatis said. “There’s no longer players, fans. I feel like everybody’s just people, human beings trying to be secure.”
The game was halted then and completed on Sunday, with the Padres finishing off a 10-4 win.
The shooting, an exchange of gunfire between people in two cars, left three people injured, according to Ashan Benedict, the Metropolitan Police Department’s executive assistant police chief. One of the people who was shot was a woman who was attending the game and who was struck while she was outside the stadium, he said Saturday night. Her injuries weren’t considered lifethreatening.