Teen with gun disrupts Mercer County, NJ school football game

EWING — A high school football game was interrupted on Friday night, when a fight among spectators led police to discover a teen in-attendance was armed with a gun.

Ewing High School hosted Lawrence High School for a varsity football game that started at 6 p.m. — the first major athletic event with an in-person crowd since March 2020, Ewing school officials said.

Shortly after halftime, a fight broke out between some people who were not students from either school, according to Ewing Police.

“This incident had nothing to do with students of either school, any kind of dispute between the schools, or the game being played,” the Ewing Township Board of Education said in a written release.

The game was paused and the athletic complex was cleared out as police dealt with the fight.

In breaking up the confrontation, it was discovered that one of the teens had a firearm in his possession, police said.

That teen was charged with weapons offenses and the other juveniles were released to their parents on scene.

A small group of family members, staff and police remained on-hand when the game later resumed and finished.

“It is clear from this incident that certain security concerns in the climate of COVID-19 are heightened,” the board said in its same written release, adding that a review involving township police would be done to prevent “something like this from occurring again.”

There were no injuries reported amid the Friday incident.