AP Photo/Sam Craft
Alabama freshman walk-on basketball player Kai Spears threatened to take legal action against The New York Times after they reported he was at the scene of a January murder.
Jamea Jonae Harris was killed in mid-January after former Alabama player Darius Miles and Michael Lynn Davis allegedly shot at a car she was riding in near the University of Alabama’s campus.
In February, police told an Alabama grand jury that star player Brandon Miller gave Miles the weapon before the shooting, and he was at the scene, which led to him receiving “lock him up” chants from a South Carolina crowd, and was heavily criticized after he received a “pat down” from a teammate in pregame warmups.
The Times reported that Spears was also at the scene on that deadly night, and Alabama’s athletic department, along with Spears and his family, fought back against the claim.
“Your story is inaccurate,” the university’s athletic department wrote in a statement to the Times on Wednesday. “Based on the information we have, there were no current student-athletes present at the scene other than Brandon Miller and Jaden Bradley, who are both fully cooperating witnesses. From the outset, UA Athletics has fully cooperated with law enforcement and supported their investigation.”
Spears released a statement of his own on Thursday.
“The writer had complete disregard for the truth,” Spears wrote. “I am trying to process and cope with these false statements that somehow have been published and...
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