On May 13, hundreds of New Yorkers attended the Citi Field Carnival, only to leave fearing for their lives after gunshots were allegedly heard. Wendy Jachero, 17, was one of these people.
“We were all planning to leave because we didn’t have enough tickets when we saw people running,” she says. “We didn’t think much of it because we had seen a fight. But then people started running, screaming and getting on top of the fences. That’s when we heard that something was going on, we heard a gunshot.”
She said police presence was minimal at the event.
“[I didn’t see any] police. I didn’t see any security or police officers — nothing,” Jachero says. “It was just us and a lot of people running. It was super crowded.”
Jachero and her friends were far from the carnival’s exit when they heard a shot. They managed to leave the carnival by climbing on top of a porta-potty and jumping out.
“I was very scared because a girl fell out of the [bathroom] roof, all the way down,” she says.
An NYPD spokesperson says there was no information on shots fired in the area. A follow up email was not immediately returned.
Dreamland Amusements, the company hosting the carnival, will be hosting an event in Astoria Park in June. Jachero hopes there is more security to prevent something like this from happening again this time.
“I wish more police had come. I didn’t see any police officers, any police cars — nothing. Not even security. That’s what impacted me a lot because many people got hurt,” she says. “I was planning on going to the [Astoria Carnival], but now, I’m not sure with everything that happened.”
