Midnight Basketball–the late-night, city-sponsored basketball league–is under increased scrutiny since a fight at a game April 3, and the popular series may be in trouble.

That’s according to the Press-Telegram’s Greg Mellen, who writes this morning that the fight, between roughly 15 Crips, and a league player and volunteer coach–at least one of whom may have been an alleged member of a rival Crips sect–”has raised concern about safety at the park and the future of the program whose mission is precisely to prevent the kind of violence that erupted that Thursday night.”

Mellen notes that some people whom he talked to feel like the league has taken a turn for the worse since the Long Beach Department of Parks, Recreation & Marine began running it.

“According to several coaches formerly involved with the league, the continuity of leadership was broken when Leonard Adams, the former league coordinator, was not retained and people from outside the league were picked to replace him,” Mellen writes.

“I think it got political,” Rickey Gipson, a former league coordinator, told Mellen. “They decided to bring in someone who’s not familiar with the area and the gangs in the area. If you want this thing to work, you have to have the right people in the right positions.”

Now here’s Mellen again: “Although there are no plans to close down the league, there are fears the violence could be used as an excuse to curtail further funding.”

According to Mellen, Parks and Rec officials were unavailable to comment on his story.

Tags: California, Crips, Greg Mellen, Leonard Adams, Long Beach, Long Beach Department of Parks, Midnight Basketball, press telegram, Recreation & Marine, Rickey Gipson, Southern California, The District Weekly, Theo Douglas