Noel Night shooting stemmed from fight at high school football game

DETROIT (WJBK) - The Detroit police chief said on Monday that a 16-year-old shot four teenagers at Noel Night in Detroit following a fight at a high school football championship game.

Police Chief James Craig addressed Saturday night's shooting on Monday and said that through their investigation, they learned that everything started at a high school football game at Ford Field. He said that a group of teens got into a fight there and it continued Saturday night at Noel Night.

A 16-year-old was detained on Sunday, Craig said. He was officially named a suspect on Monday.

Craig said that two groups of teens met and pushing and shoving happened at the venue. He said it then escalated to gunfire that ended with four teens being shot. The four teens injured all have non life-threatening injuries.

The fight was not among competing schools. He said all the students involved were part of East English Village High School. 

Craig stopped short of calling for a curfew for this event, like what's in place for the fireworks celebration in the summer, but said that there were hundreds of minors there.

"As you know, we planned for fireworks celebration, part of imposing curfew was so we could keep young people safe. It may be a recommendation that we may make going forward. There were hundreds of unsupervised youth," he said.

Craig said that there were more than 120 police officers at Noel Night this year, including Wayne State police officers.

Detroit police say the shooting happened Saturday around 7:30 p.m.on John R and Farnsworth, which is in front of the Detroit Institute of Arts. Noel Night is an annual event in which hundreds of Detroit stores, restaurants, churches and museums participate. 

Briana Johnson a teen in the area, ran when she heard the shooting.

"We as teens, we should be able to come out an enjoy ourselves, we're young we should be having fun and not ducking and dodging worrying about who's going to shoot us," she said.