Man indicted in slaying of 10-year-old boy at Pleasantville football game

An Atlantic County man was indicted Tuesday on murder and other charges related to the fatal shooting last fall of a boy sitting in the bleachers at a high school playoff football game in Pleasantville, N.J.

A grand jury returned the indictment against Alvin Wyatt, 31, in the shooting that killed 10-year-old Micah Tennant, wounded two other people, and sent a panicked crowd fleeing the packed high school athletic complex on Nov. 15.

The shooting occurred during the third quarter of the Camden-Pleasantville game. Authorities said Wyatt — spotting a rival in the stands — opened fire into the bleachers, shooting the intended target, Ibn Abdullah, as well as Tennant and an unidentified 15-year-old boy sitting nearby.

Wyatt was tackled in the end zone while trying to flee the stadium, which held the largest crowd at a Pleasantville football game in at least 20 years, police said.

In total, six men were arrested and charged after the shooting. Wyatt and Abdullah were charged with Micah’s death, while the cases against four others — accused of fleeing police in a blue BMW after the attack — are being treated as unrelated to the boy’s death, a spokesperson for the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said.

Micah, a fifth grader at Atlantic City’s Uptown School Complex, was critically injured by a bullet that struck him in the neck. Despite immediate medical care from a retired Pleasantville battalion chief sitting in the stands, the boy never regained consciousness and died at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

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Remembered by friends and family as smart and energetic, Micah had a passion for music and earned the nickname “DJ Dew” for his love of DJ-ing at family events and his own birthday party, his family wrote in his obituary.

Hours after the boy died, Camden and Pleasantville played the remainder of the game under the bright lights of Lincoln Financial Field, holding a moment of silence in Micah’s honor. Camden won a 22-0 bittersweet victory as fans and family from both teams grappled with the aftermath of the violence.

» READ MORE: After a deadly football game shooting, Pleasantville marches to heal

“It’s beyond comprehension,” Micah’s uncle said. “Nobody should do the child and family in an event like that, and open fire on innocent people like that."

The indictment charges Wyatt with murder, two counts of attempted murder, and weapons charges.