Tennis star Naomi Osaka said she was “f–cking petrified” the moment she heard there may be an active shooter — which turned out to be a false report — inside the Barclays Center early Sunday.
“I was just in the Barclays center and suddenly I heard shouting and saw people running, then we were being yelled at that there was an active shooter and we had to huddle in a room and close the doors, I was so fucking petrified man,” Osaka said on Twitter.
The four-time Grand slam champion was one of the spectators at a boxing match inside the Brooklyn arena who got caught in the chaos that followed the false report.
Video posted online shows crowds fleeing in terror as panic swept through Barclays Center, leaving 16 people injured. Seven people were hospitalized.
“This feeling of familiarity towards these frequent devastating situations might be exclusive to people living in America but the emotions I experienced in those few minutes I was waiting in that room is something I wouldn’t want anyone to go through,” Osaka said.
Footage from the event, including at least one clip posted on TikTok, showed a frantic stampede, with people ducking and running inside the arena that had hosted the Gervonta Davis-Rolando Romero boxing match earlier that night.
The NYPD said no gunfire went off, though there was a fight not far on Atlantic Avenue and Fort Greene Place at around 1 a.m. involving a man who then ran toward the Atlantic Terminal Mall.
Crowds then started running in the same direction, contributing to the confusion, cops said.
The false report and resulting panic came less than a week after a twisted gunman shot and killed 19 students and two teachers at a Texas elementary school and about two weeks after a racist shooter killed 10 people at a Buffalo grocery store.
