Reinsdorf: "Virtually no possibility" that gunfire came from inside Guaranteed Rate Field last week
CHICAGO (CBS) -- For the first time Thursday, White Sox owner Jerry Reinsdorf talked about the shooting inside his ballpark last week.
As CBS 2's Suzanne Le Mignot reported, Reinsdorf told reporters he believed the Friday night incident – which left two women injured – involved a gun going off outside Guaranteed Rate Field.
Reinsdorf said on Wednesday night, he got an update on the investigation from Interim police Supt. Fred Waller.
"Regardless of what has been said by anybody, the police have not ruled out the possibility, or the probability, that gunshots the other night came from outside the ballpark," Reinsdorf said.
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On Friday of last week, two women were shot while in the stands as the White Sox took on the Oakland A's at Guaranteed Rate Field. A 42-year-old woman was shot in the leg and taken to a hospital, while a 26-year-old woman was grazed in the abdomen and refused medical treatment.
Both women were seated in section 162.
Questions remained nearly a week later as to how both women were shot. Did the shots come from outside the ballpark, or inside?
"I don't want to comment on the specific details because the police are still investigating. They haven't come to a final conclusion. But we have done a lot of investigation. We have gathered a lot of facts – and without going into the details, because I don't want to influence the police decision, the fact is based upon the information available to us, I see virtually no possibility that the gunshots came from within the ballpark," Reinsdorf said. "It's totally safe to be in this ballpark. I don't think a gun has ever gotten past our security."
Reinsdorf made his comments as new White Sox General Manager Chris Getz was introduced. CBS 2's Charlie De Mar asked Getz about safety at the game coming up Friday night.
De Mar: "Those fans who may be concerned to come to the ballpark, or have questions on how this was handled – in terms of the information that has been released both from the White Sox and the Chicago Police Department – what do you say to those fans?"
Getz: "Our security group and the Chicago Police Department are communicating. You know, there are still some questions that need to be answered, but I do want to say that our highest priority is the safety of our plans, our players, and their families."
As for the White Sox' decision to keep playing after the shooting, Getz stands by it.
"It was clearly not an immediate threat to anyone," Getz said. "Obviously there was time needed to collect information."
A White Sox source also told CBS 2 Political Investigator Dana Kozlov on Wednesday that all the evidence the team had indicated the two bullets came from outside the ballpark.
That source said they had traced where the two victims entered the park, and no alarms were triggered when they went through metal detectors. They also traced the people who sat around them, and the source said none set off any alarms either.
This was contrary to what Interim police Supt. Waller said earlier this week.
"Its coming from outside is something that we've almost completely dispelled, but we're still looking at every avenue," Waller said Monday.
Timothy Hicks, a firearms expert with Professional Analysis and Consulting who also oversees a firearm certification testing lab, did not agree with the Sox source's assessment.
"I think that it is more likely than not that it came from inside the park, as opposed to outside, opposed to outside," Hicks told CBS 2's De Mar on Wednesday.
Hicks has not personally reviewed any of the evidence from the shooting. But as for the theory that shots came from outside the park, Hicks said the contention is poorly supported by physics.
"By the time it would have made that arc and then come down into the stands, I don't think there would be enough energy left to really do that level of injury to the person," he said.
Earlier this week, multiple sources claimed that one of the two women who were shot at the Friday night game had sneaked a gun into the stadium inside her "belly fat." The first such report appeared in the publication Sports Mockery on Monday.
Citing a source, Sports Mockery claimed the woman set off the metal detector three different times. The publication claimed one of the sources assumed security "did not want to overstep their boundaries when further checking the woman's body after the metal detectors continued to go off."
On Tuesday night, attorney John Malm, representing the 42-year-old woman, said his client did not bring the gun into the stadium and had nothing to do with the gunfire.
Police are also not releasing ballistics information, which would be able to identify the type of gun from which the bullets were fired.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said it will be helping the CPD out with ballistic testing.
The Chicago Police Department said Thursday that they are exploring every possibility surrounding the shooting.
Owner Reinsdorf says he hopes the investigation wraps up soon.
