East Bay prep football player injured in accidental BB gun shooting

OAKLEY — A freshman football player at Freedom High School suffered a jaw injury after being accidentally shot by another player with a BB gun, all while they were selling raffle tickets for a fundraiser.

Now his mom wants to know why she wasn’t informed that the football practice would morph into a door-to-door sales pitch.

Traci Austin-Dright said she went to pick up her son, 14-year-old Eugene Moses, Monday outside the school around 5:48 p.m., only to learn that the shooting had happened while the two were in a home trying to sell tickets. She came to the school with the impression that he and his teammates would be on the field.

“It was the last day to sell the discount raffle tickets, and all of the athletes were sent out by the coaches to go into the neighborhood and knock on strange doors,” Austin-Dright said. “I’m thinking my son is at practice, and he’s out going door-to-door, which to me is very unsafe.”

Freedom High Principal Kelly Manke did not immediately return a message Wednesday morning seeking comment about the incident or the school’s policy of notifying parents about fundraising efforts. Calls to the athletic department went unanswered.

“My son has been playing football since he was 7,” Austin-Dright said. “It’s not unusual to sell raffle tickets or do fundraisers. But to not notify parents that they’re sending kids out into the neighborhood without any chaperone, I don’t think that’s right.”

Police took a report on the shooting and are investigating it as an assault with a deadly weapon. According to police, Moses set out with two other boys, and rather than sell tickets, they went to one of the boys’ homes.

The BB gun was on a table, and a teen who did not live at the residence began to play with it. The teen who did live at the home warned the teen it was loaded, but the boy pulled the trigger anyway, sending a pellet into Moses’ jaw, police said.

Austin-Dright said the pellet lodged in the masseter muscle and that her son cannot open his jaw. He is scheduled to see a doctor early next week to see if surgery will be needed to remove the pellet.

“He can’t eat,” she said. “It’s all Jamba Juice and liquids.”

Check back for updates.