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Odds of Two Shootings and an Assault at 49ers-Raiders Pre-Season Game?

By John Kays

After a pre-season football game between the San Francisco 49ers and the Oakland Raiders, a man (his T-shirt soaked with blood) gets into a pickup truck, trying to leave the game. He makes it to Gate A (which is an entrance), but stumbles out of his truck with two to four gunshots to the stomach, apparently.

He is taken to San Francisco General Hospital and is in critical condition, from latest reports. A suspect is apprehended on a party bus in the RV section of the parking lot. News reports have him wearing Raiders apparel. How ironic is this, since his victim was wearing a F-the 49ers T-shirt?

Were there witnesses who saw the shooting? What caused the altercation, since they both were Raiders' fans, seemingly? And what was this Raiders' man doing with a handgun at a pre-season professional football game, and at historic Candlestick Park no less? Did the fact that the 49ers won 17-3 play a role in the shooting? Was alcohol involved?

To top it off, two other incidents of violence peppered the California pre-season game. One unrelated, the other possibly related to the duel Raider fan shooting. A 20-year-old man sustained superficial wounds to the face (a gunshot wound).

His location was at Pole V in the parking lot. Reports coming forth are mixed - some say they are separate, some say they are connected.

The icing on the cake (for a sour start-off to football season) is the beating of a 26-year-old San Rafael man in a restroom (same game, Candlestick Park). The beating must have been bad, since this man was knocked unconscious and hospitalized. Moreover, it must have been a public beating, since a suspect has been arrested already.

Three examples of senseless violence, and occurring in the context of a pre-season game, that means nothing in terms of the impact to the official season. There must be another reason for this violence?

And is it a coincident, where it happens three times in one night at the same game? How could a stupid T-shirt incite someone (who's rooting for the same team) to pull out a pistol and start shooting?

The first thing coming to mind for many, in light of this latest sports' imbroglio, is the beating of a San Francisco Giants fan (Bryan Stow, a Santa Cruz paramedic) at Dodger Stadium, the season opener (March 31). The perpetrators of the assault were dressed in Los Angeles Dodgers' gear. Ring a bell?

Levels of fervor at these games is pitched to a greater intensity than has ever seen before! Something else behind this, other than 'healthy competition' at a sports event?

Healthy is the wrong word. This is anything but healthy; it's a social sickness of sort. Why would someone bring a handgun with them to a game, unless they intended to use it?

There's much more behind this? Why would an individual beat someone up in a restroom? Did he intend to do it to any random person even before he entered the facility? I suspect as much.

Is it safe anymore to attend sporting events? Just heard about gunfire at a soccer game in Mexico, but that's Mexico, what about Los Angeles and San Francisco, California?

John Kays identifies timeless remnants from our past that will endure, or be admired by future generations.