A woman and her 2-year-old son died when they fell six stories from the San Diego Padres’ baseball park in California on Saturday, and cops say the incident “appeared to be suspicious,’’ according to reports.
Thousands of fans were streaming into Petco Park for the start of Saturday’s 4:15 p.m. game when the unidentified 40-year-old mother and child fell off the stadium’s dining concourse around 3:50 p.m., police said.
A man told the San Diego Union-Tribune that his wife saw the fall and told him it looked like the little boy plummeted first and that the mother then went over trying to grab onto him.
Emergency responders performed CPR on the two victims for 20 minutes before they were pronounced dead at the scene, police said.
Police said the fatal incident “appeared to be suspicious,” although San Diego Police Lt. Andra Brown added to KSWB-TV, “We do not know the circumstances surrounding it.
“We do not know if it was accidental or intentional,” Brown said.
Police said they were speaking to witnesses and the child’s father, who was at the ballpark at the time.
“It’s a tragic event,” Brown said.
“We feel horrible for the families and our hearts obviously go out to the family members, but also the people here that potentially could be traumatized.”
Padres’ Vice President of Communications Craigh Hughner declined comment “due to the ongoing [police] investigation.”
Padres fan Brian Howell told NBC 7 that police and stadium crews kept fans away from certain areas of the stadium. He said most fans were unaware of what had happened.
“They were just keeping us away from that area, we thought it was standard protocol, but everyone along this side was keeping us out of that area,” Howell said. “All we heard was that there might have been an unfortunate incident.”
