PLEASANTVILLE, N.J. _ The 10-year-boy wounded in the shooting during a high school football game in Pleasantville, N.J., on Friday has died, according to the Pleasantville Police Department.
Word of the death of Micah Tennant, a fifth grader at Atlantic City's Uptown School Complex known as Dew, came just hours before the high school teams from Pleasantville and Camden were to play the remainder of their state playoff game before an invited crowd at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles.
"No words can heal the suffering when a family loses a child _ we can only do our best to ensure they know our prayers and sympathy are with them. In the coming days we will continue to offer support to the Tennant family as we grieve together for Dew," the department wrote on Facebook Wednesday.
The boy was struck in the neck when gunfire erupted in the stands in what police said was a dispute that had nothing to do with the schools or the game.
Affidavits filed for the six men arrested on the case paint a chilling picture of a shooting orchestrated by Atlantic City-area men who were not dissuaded from violence by the place they found their target: a high school football game.
The Pleasantville-Camden game was in the third quarter, with Camden leading by 6-0, when shots rang out about 8:30 p.m., sending players, coaches, and fans fleeing the stadium where the largest crowd in 20 years had turned out for a Pleasantville football game.
Investigators are looking into a prior Atlantic City homicide as a possible motive and the defendants' possible connections to drug trafficking, but Pleasantville Police Chief Sean Riggin said Tuesday motive was beside the point.
"I'm not going to dignify this with a motive," Riggin said. "There's no motive to shoot a 10-year-old."
Charges against one of the men, Alvin Wyatt, who was tackled while trying to flee the stadium, were upgraded to murder after the boy's death, the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office said.
"On behalf of the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office, we would like to express our sincere condolences to the Tennant family on the tragic passing of Micah. Words at this time seem so insufficient to portray the anger and outrage that our community feels regarding his loss. However, his spirit will live on in so many people that he inspired," Atlantic County Prosecutor Damon G. Tyner said in a statement.
The boy had been taken to Cooper University Medical Center in Camden after the shooting.
A 15-year-old boy also was treated for a gunshot wound and released after the shooting.
Ibn Abdullah, 27, one of the defendants in the case and the apparent target of the shooting, remained in critical condition at AtlantiCare Regional Medical Center, Atlantic City campus, authorities said.
The two boys were sitting near Abdullah when the gunfire erupted.
