By Dylana Milobar

KYSA players shaken up, but safe after firearm incident during Surrey tournament

Mar 31, 2019 | 10:56 AM

SURREY, BC — What started out as a normal weekend of soccer turned frightening for the hundreds of Kamloops Youth Soccer Association players and families attending a tournament in Surrey yesterday.

Surrey RCMP responded to Newton Athletic park around 1:50 p.m yesterday afternoon (Mar. 30) after reports came in of a man with a firearm in the area.

In a release today, Sgt. David MacDonald of the Surrey RCMP says the male was subsequently located and arrested for various offences and is presently in police custody.

The investigation is still in its early stages, but initial indications are that this is an isolated incident, there is no risk to the public and the weapon was an imitation.

KYSA Senior Staff Coach Mark Bell says he’s grateful for the safe outcome, as they had 11 teams with 127 players attending the Adidas Cup tournament.

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“We actually had a team that was right down on the field where the incident started, and it’s one of those things where it spiraled out of control very quickly.”

Bell says after word began to spread of a man with a weapon in the park, they had to work quickly to gain some control during the chaos.

“People just dropped everything, and everyone started to evacuate the complex,” He explains, “I would say our Kamloops coaches and parents did an exceptional job of not only keeping the kids calm, but keeping them all together, and they got them to safe places.”

At the end of the day, Bell says no injuries came out of the incident, but given how shaken up participants were, they took the rest of the afternoon off.

Michaela Swan was on the field at the time watching a U11 game, when she says a man ran by and yelled about an ‘active shooter’.

“It was panic. People were running, people were crying, people were yelling. Things were dropped, purses were dropped, bags were dropped,” She explains, “It was a surreal scene. I just feel you can’t ever totally prepare for that. We just ran, we didn’t even know where we were running.”

Swan’s daughter, 9-year-old Maya, was watching her cousin play when the incident unfolded, and says it was confusing at first. 

“A man comes running up with a whole pack of people behind him, and he says he saw a gun or something like that,” She says, “So then we all started running.”

Swan says it took about 40 minutes for the scene to be cleared by RCMP after they had apprehended the suspect.

“I’m sad that we live in an environment now where that’s a thing. We have to run and evacuate because these mass shootings have occurred in real life,” She says, “So lots of conversations with our kids about getting back to the field today, because we don’t want an incident like that to take away our spirit.”

Despite the terrifying ordeal, Swan says the teams have bounced back into play and have even won some matches. 

For now, KYSA says they will continue to keep playing the rest of the tournament, and will use the incident as a learning experience in case anything similar happens again.