Recently, during a prestigious high school basketball tournament that was organized at Wake Technical Community College, a massive fight happened between the fans. This incident happened on Wednesday night, it was uncontrollable. With the motive to control the fight, the security guard fired tear gas at that place.
The tournament was the 49th John Wall Holiday Invitational’s final game which was interrupted because of the massive chaos that happened because of the fans. This tournament is considered to be one of the popular High School Basketball Tournaments that are organized in the USA.
In 2016, John Wall, who is the NBA All-Star and Raleigh native, became the title sponsor of this basketball tournament. The tournament was renamed after his joining. Best basketball teams play in this tournament and compete with their strongest opponents at the state as well as national level.
Statement Made By Bryan Hanks for the Incident
The reason behind the fight between the fans that broke out at the Northern Wake Campus of the Wake Technical Community College is unclear. As per sources, the tournament was the final round and because of the conflict, it was interrupted in between. The report says that the players of the tournament were not involved in the fight
As per Bryan Hanks, a spokesperson came forward to make a statement from the organizer’s side. He said, “the fight happened during a game between Farmville Central and Kissimmee, Florida’s Life Christian Academy. When the fight began, the security had already been stretched thin due to a prior fight that occurred among players from Southern California Academy of Castaic, California, and Moravian Prep from Hudson, North Carolina.”
He added, “security guard sprayed tear gas to successfully break up the fight after the crowd brawl began. The gym was evacuated by official shortfly afterward.”
According to Bryan Hanks, “the organizers are working hard to make the event safe. This event has taken place for 49 years, we have never had anything even close to something like this. I can guarantee you nothing like that happened today is going to happen today.”
He added, “The deployment of tear gas created an unsafe situation for players in the Farmville Central and Life Christian game prompting the tournament to reschedule the game to Thursday morning, on December 30.”
Incident Captured in Video
The fight that occurred during the tournament has been captured in a video that is going viral. We can clearly see that some people are insanely beating each other. Those people were so angry that they started lifting chairs for hitting the other people. A security guard tried to stop them but he was unsuccessful.
At last tear gas was fired for controlling the situation. Even after spraying tear gas, some people continued fighting. The gas was spread again. At the end of the video, we saw several fans running out of the court after successfully ruining the tournament.
The coordinator of the tournament, Webb Wellman said, “what happened tonight does not represent John Wall, the Triangle Education Advancement Foundation, or the Holiday Invitational. We love our players, we love our fans and we will work hard to ensure this does not happen again.”
He added, “This event is about the love of the game and violence will never be acceptable. We apologize to our fans and supporters and look forward to better serving you moving forward.”