Another 'basketbrawl' at the Garden

(New York-WABC, March 19, 2007) (WABC) -- A brawl that started during the city's high school championship basketball game at Madison Square Garden spilled outside, ending with gunfire and the arrest of 21 youths.

Eyewitness News is told most of the arrests were for disorderly conduct following the game, and not for the shots fired. No one was hit by the bullets, reportedly fired from the back passenger seat of a white vehicle speeding north on Eighth Avenue.

Police say fights in the stands started in the third quarter during the game, the PSAL championship between two Brooklyn schools, Lincoln High School and Boys and Girls High School. After play was briefly stopped, Lincoln High School went on to win 77-50.

But outside the Garden the melee continued, with fistfights breaking out among the crowd.

Hundreds of the teenagers descended on Times Square, where there were a handful of fights, some among the teenagers themselves and others with employees of local establishments.

According to reports in one fight, a teenage girl pulled a hairpiece off the head of a cashier at a pizza restaurant and ran off with it.

Police officers on horseback ultimately closed 42nd Street between Seventh and Eighth Avenues.

Get more News »

• Email
• Print
• Report a typo
•