{"id":198448,"date":"2026-05-21T01:53:14","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:53:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/198448\/"},"modified":"2026-05-21T01:53:14","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T01:53:14","slug":"this-was-supposed-to-be-a-safe-place-residents-react-to-shooting-at-city-park-reading-area-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/198448\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;This was supposed to be a safe place&#8217;: Residents react to shooting at City Park | Reading Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>READING, Pa. &#8211; Police confirm that a shooting left one man hurt in Reading\u2019s City Park on Monday night.<\/p>\n<p>Under the blazing sun, there was a burst of gunfire.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The parents called on my phone, like, \u2018Hey, coach, are you still having practice?\u2019 I&#8217;m like \u2018Yeah,\u2019 and they said, \u2018But what about the shooting up there?\u2019 I&#8217;m like, \u2018Shooting?\u2019\u201d said Shermar Killen, Blacktop Basketball.<\/p>\n<p>The City Park basketball courts, usually packed with pickup games, became the latest scene of violence in Reading.<\/p>\n<p>Police say a man was shot in the leg. This, just days after a triple shooting this weekend left neighbors shaken.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s puzzling. I really can&#8217;t believe it, to be honest with you,\u201d said Jake Haim, Reading.<\/p>\n<p>People in the park say the violence hits differently when it reaches places designed for recreation and community.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A lot of the kids get trauma. They&#8217;re traumatized when they see stuff, and in the back of their head, they picture that,\u201d Killen said. \u201cSome kids might not even want to play ball anymore.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>                        <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"data:image\/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAAQAAAADCAQAAAAe\/WZNAAAAEElEQVR42mM8U88ABowYDABAxQPltt5zqAAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==\" alt=\"One injured in shooting at Reading's City Park\" class=\"img-responsive lazyload full blur\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1080\" data- data-\/><\/p>\n<p>             <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/6a0b912f297d1.image.jpg\" alt=\"\" aria-hidden=\"true\" loading=\"lazy\" height=\"113\" width=\"200\"\/><\/p>\n<p>                                    Tim Lind | WFMZ-TV <\/p>\n<p>As temperatures rise and summer programs begin, the basketball courts are expected to be busy with kids and adults.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m up here every day. I come up here and ride in the morning. I&#8217;m up here trying to ball,\u201d Haim said.<\/p>\n<p>Yellow crime scene tape stretched across the court as police investigated, but not long after, officers cleared the scene, the games resumed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The sad part is, is that everybody just goes on their business like nothing happened,\u201d Haim said.<\/p>\n<p>People are calling for solutions before another violent incident unfolds in a place families depend on during the summer months.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;You want your kid to go out there and have fun and play with other kids, and you got to worry about foolishness like this \u2014 a shooting at a park.&#8221; Killen said. \u201cThis was supposed to be a safe place. I mean, a park?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The victim is receiving medical care for his injuries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"READING, Pa. &#8211; Police confirm that a shooting left one man hurt in Reading\u2019s City Park on Monday&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":196320,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[6008,28,736,128,130,129,1751,220],"class_list":["post-198448","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-reading","tag-city-park","tag-pennsylvania","tag-reading","tag-reading-city","tag-reading-city-headlines","tag-reading-city-news","tag-reading-police","tag-shooting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198448","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=198448"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198448\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/196320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=198448"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=198448"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=198448"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}