A man shot in the head outside the Dallas Cowboys’ Arlington, Texas stadium has died and now police look to charge the accused shooter with murder.
Richard Sells, 43, of Royce City, Texas, died on Wednesday after being shot on Sunday outside AT&T stadium in an alleged altercation with Marvin Rodriguez, 28.
Sells was shot during a fight in Lot 10 of the stadium’s parking lot almost two hours after the game between the Cowboys and the New England Patriots ended on October 11.
The alleged shooter, Rodriguez, was arrested immediately after the shooting and already faced charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury. But now authorities prepare to add additional charges, including murder, now that the victim has died.
AT&T stadium has metal detectors at entrances but police noted last weekend that neither the suspected shooter nor the victim seem to have entered the stadium to see the game.
Texas state law prohibits firearms at sporting events, but the National Football League also initiated a league-wide ban of weapons in stadiums.
AT&T Stadium’s list of “prohibited items” includes “firearms and weapons of any kind” and “knives of any length,” as well as the broad declaration that “[a]ny other item or action deemed dangerous or inappropriate” is banned. Still, the Cowboys, who boast an NFL attendance record at 105,121, remain relatively powerless to check each incoming vehicle entering their parking lots for firearms.
The NFL’s gun ban extends to advertising by gun and ammunition manufacturers as well as gun shops and other gun-dealers.
The football league, though, does not ban advertising by alcohol manufacturers or dealers and it is often short tempers and alcohol that joins in the mix of violence at sports stadiums.
The sports world has been beset with violence inside stadiums and in parking lots. Most recently, only days ago a New York Mets fan was critically injured in a parking lot at Dodger Stadium after a fight with an L.A. Dodgers fan immediately after Game 1 of the National League Division Series.
Earlier this year a young employee at the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Quicken Loans Arena was severely beaten and robbed outside the stadium.
In July one of two men who viciously beat another man in a bathroom in the San Francisco 49ers’ Levi’s stadium was sentenced to five years in state prison for the attack.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com
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