Soccer coach helps save grandma’s life after she’s hit by stray bullets at Phoenix Park

PHOENIX (3TV/CBS 5) – Phoenix police are searching for the suspect who shot a woman at a football practice in Phoenix Park on Tuesday night.

Club Tigres soccer coach Brenda Mendoza helped keep the victim alive until first responders showed up. He says it was a typical soccer practice at Cielito Park, until it was suspended. “This has always been one of my fears,” he said. “We have been practicing in this park for over 10 years.”

The group was warming up when they heard the sound of fireworks. Mendoza said a woman ran toward him, yelling that someone had been shot across the parking lot from the soccer fields. “I see my husband waving and saying my wife was shot, Brenda, help, help,” Mendoza said.

When he ran to help, he recognized the woman as the grandmother of one of his players. He said his grandmother was shot in the back by a stray bullet. Mendoza immediately jumped in and applied pressure to the wound until first responders showed up to help. “When we were cutting the shirt, we saw how big the wound was, so I had to keep applying pressure, and we put a patch on it to stop the bleeding,” said Mendoza.

Phoenix police say the shooter was not trying to hit the player’s grandmother. Instead, witnesses told Arizona Family the suspect was trying to rob the ice cream man in the park when shots were fired. Mendoza said that once the ambulance took her grandmother to the hospital, she ran to make sure the ice cream man wasn’t injured. He said that he had scratches and bruises, but that he had not been shot. Police said the shooter fled before they arrived and has not been identified or captured.

The family said the bullet pierced the grandmother’s liver and lung and broke three ribs. They say he is stable and remains in the ICU for now.

Anyone with information about this incident can contact the Phoenix Police Department or Silent Witness.

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