‘I just remember hearing shot after shot:’ Ten Pin Alley shooting witness talks about frightening moments

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — The investigation continues into shots fired at a Wilmington bowling alley Friday night.

On Wednesday, a witness, who wanted to stay anonymous, spoke to WWAY News about her terrifying experience.

The witness and her friends drove to Breaktime Billiards on South College Road around 9 p.m. on Friday hoping to play pool. Before going in, she smoked a cigarette outside and noticed several men in a heated discussion by Ten Pin Alley.

“Things seemed to calm down after that,” she said. “I was like, ‘oh, this is sketchy. I don’t think I want to hang out here too long.’ So I already kind of had a bad vibe walking in there.”

After going inside, she and her friends played pool just 20 feet from where the shooting started. 30 minutes into their game, she reported heard someone yell for security as several people fought on the bowling lanes.

“Security, security, I need security,” she said. “And we all kind of looked in that direction but nobody went over except for the people that obviously worked there to break it up.”

She watched as security escorted at least one woman out. Ten minutes later around 9:45 p.m., she heard shots and screams close by. Her friend pulled her under the pool table for safety.

“I was like, ‘that’s not real,'” the witness remembered. “This isn’t happening right now. I kind of went into a state of shock. I was under the pool table thinking I looked like an idiot being under this table. And then, about that time I hear, ‘Pop, pop, pop!’, and I was like, ‘holy crap!’ This is real, this is happening right now, like, I need to get out of here.”

She and dozens of others then rushed to escape. Workers helped customers get to an employee exit in the back of the building.

“And all I remember is just running, and running, and running and hearing shot after shot after shot,” she said. “I was like, ‘when is this over?’”

She and her friends got in one piece but were shaken up. The witness said she remembered feeling overwhelmingly grateful.

“Thank God,” she said to WWAY. “That could have been so much worse. It could have been so much more serious. Somebody could have been killed. You know, I was just grateful that me and my friends got out of there OK.”​

In spite of at least 24 shots being fired, only one person was shot Friday night. Police say that person was under the age of 18 and was released from the hospital earlier this week in good condition.

No one has been arrested in the shooting.