Parents Brawl at Catholic Kid's Basketball Game in Wild Footage
Unbelievable footage captured by Staten Island Live shows the moment a Catholic elementary school basketball game descended into madness, with parents storming the court as a large-scale brawl erupted in the gymnasium.
Catholic Childrens Basketball Game Erupts in Violence
The episode took place on Dec. 20 at St. Teresa in Castleton Corners in Staten Island during a game between St. Teresa’s sixth-grade boys and the team from nearby Saint Clare Catholic school. The event was overseen by the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), which monitors all parish-based sports activities in the area.
The video shows two women, reportedly mothers of the athletes, engaged in a heated discussion on the sidelines. Although it’s unclear what was said, one of the women took extreme offense and began belting the other with punches. An extremely chaotic fistfight ensued, with the two women battering one another as other parents and game officials rushed onto the court to stop the mêlée.
But the intervention wasn’t enough to stop the two women as one grabbed the other by the hair and punched her several times directly in the head. A group of men were eventually able to pull the women apart, but not before a separate fistfight broke out amongst members of the rescuing party. The two women eventually found each other again, locking one another in a tight embrace as they wrestled around the court.
Parents Have Been Banned from Future Events
CYO County Director Michael Neely confirmed to news outlets that the two women were parents of children participating in the game. It’s unclear who the women’s children are, or for what team they were playing. Neely added that some of the other spectators who became involved in the scrum were family members of the two women. “Two families got involved and, in the end, their families have been banned from [all future CYO events] indefinitely,” he said.
New Rules Instituted to Prevent Future Incidents
The caught-on-camera brawl so unsettled Staten Island officials that, earlier this week, new rules were instituted to prevent spectators at CYO events from engaging in similarly disruptive behavior. Anyone who is ejected from a CYO game by a referee will now face a one-year ban from all events.
“The mission was about the kids,” said Fossella, whose own children participate in CYO sports. “The mission was about teaching them responsibility. The mission was about them having a good time: the kids. The kids are the center of this universe here. And every once in a while some spectators get out of control and ruin it for the kids and ruin it for everybody else.”