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Pickup drives onto Kansas youth soccer game, killing 2 and injuring 10

Elena MarquezPublished 3m ago2 min readBased on 4 sources
Pickup drives onto Kansas youth soccer game, killing 2 and injuring 10
Photo by AlfvanBeem / CC0

Two people were killed and 10 others were hurt when a pickup truck drove onto the field during a youth soccer game at Wichita's Stryker Sports Complex. Police identified the dead as six-year-old Cole Adrian and 35-year-old Nicholas Schafer, The Guardian reported.

Cole was the son of middle school soccer coach Chris Adrian. Police said Cole and Schafer were unrelated residents of McPherson, Kansas.

The driver was a 34-year-old woman from Garden City, Kansas. She was driving a Chevrolet pickup truck with two of her three children inside at the time. Witnesses said the vehicle had been parked in a nearby space before driving onto the field.

Wichita police released the driver without charges on Sunday pending further investigation and toxicology tests. Police Chief Joe Sullivan said investigators will continue working to understand exactly what happened.

Five of the injured were children: girls ages five and nine, a five-year-old boy and two eight-year-old boys. The injured adults included women aged 28, 59 and 65, and men aged 32 and 68. A 61-year-old woman was treated for medical complications unrelated to traumatic injuries.

Police said they had spoken to more than 30 witnesses and appealed for anyone with video to come forward. The City of Wichita had published a notice on October 17 stating that the police department was investigating an incident at the complex.