A student manager for the Alabama men’s basketball team said Friday that he was a passenger in star player Brandon Miller’s car during a January shooting in Tuscaloosa. One person was killed and Mr Miller’s car was hit by stray bullets in the incident, which involved several vehicles.
The manager, Cooper Lee, acknowledged his presence at the scene of the crime to The New York Times after another player, Kai Spears, sued the paper this week for reporting in March that he was in Mr Miller’s car when he was hit by the windscreen her. bullets.
Mr. Spears denied being in the car and said in the lawsuit that falsely identifying himself as a passenger “will forever brand him as a person connected to murder.” The suit, which seeks damages for defamation and invasion of privacy, first revealed that Mr Lee had entered Mr Miller’s car at 1.40am. on Jan. 15, minutes before the shooting.
“I can confirm that I was the passenger in Brandon Miller’s car at the time of the shooting,” Mr. Lee, 21, said in an email to The Times. Mr Lee, who has not been charged with a crime, declined to comment further beyond confirming that Mr Spears was not in the car. His LinkedIn profile lists him as a hospitality and sports management major at the university.
A Times spokeswoman, Danielle Rhoades Ha, said the article would be corrected.
“We have a long-standing error correction policy,” she said in a statement. “Based on the information in the affidavit and new reports from our newsroom, we believe our original story was inaccurate and plan to add an editor’s note to the story.”
Two people have been charged with murder stemming from the shooting: Darius Miles, who started the season for the team, and his friend Michael Davis, who is accused of firing the fatal shots that killed passenger Jamie Harris, 23, within seconds . car. Mr. Miles has pleaded not guilty. Mr. Davis is seeking youthful offender status.
Mr. Miller, likely to be the top pick in the NBA draft, and Mr. Lee were not injured and have not been involved in the incident, which unfolded as bars emptied along the Strip, a gathering spot near campus along of University Avenue.
The killing of Ms. Harris has garnered widespread attention, coming at a time when the University of Alabama’s Crimson Tide team was among the top in the country and was in contention for a national championship. Alabama’s handling of the case has come under scrutiny in the months since, as players who were present at the crime scene continued to suit up for games while authorities investigated.
Two months after the episode, on March 15, the Times reported that Mr. Spears, who was a freshman, was in Mr. Miller’s car during the shooting. The identity of Mr. Miller’s passenger was provided by The Times to a person familiar with the investigation, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.
In a brief locker room interview at the time, Mr. Spears was quoted by the Times as saying, “I’m sorry, I won’t be able to talk about it.”
But after the article was published online, Mr. Spears, his family and the university said the account was inaccurate, and the Times updated the article to reflect their statements.
An Alabama athletics spokeswoman said at the time that “based on the information we have, there were no current student-athletes at the scene other than Brandon Miller and Jaden Bradley,” a player who was in a third car near the shooting. The university’s athletic director, Greg Byrne, said in a statement that it was not true that Mr. Spears was present.
And Mr. Spears’ father, Christian Spears, who works at Marshall University as an athletic director, said in a statement on Marshall’s athletic website that he was “disappointed in the irresponsible and demonstrably false publication by the NY Times.”
The lawsuit, filed Wednesday in federal court in Alabama, said lawyers for Mr. Spears asked the Times for a retraction on March 20, but the paper did not accept the request.
Mr. Spears “inadvertently made national news,” leading to emotional distress because he was associated with a “criminal event,” the lawsuit says.
The lawsuit provided the first public record of Mr. Spears’ whereabouts during the shooting, including an affidavit from a visiting high school friend and FaceTime video call exchanges with Mr. Bradley, who has since been transferred. at the University of Arizona.
After Alabama’s win against Louisiana State on Jan. 14, Mr. Spears went to eat at a Waffle House with two high school friends who were visiting from Clemson University before returning to his dorm to get ready for a night out, the which included dinner with Mr. Miller at a barbecue restaurant near the Strip, according to the suit and the affidavit of the friend, Dylan Serafini.
At the barbecue restaurant, Mr. Spears had a FaceTime call with Mr. Bradley, who, along with Mr. Miller, asked Mr. Spears and his friends if they wanted to stay outside. They declined because of the late hour, and Mr. Spears and his high school friends headed home while Mr. Miller got into his car with the team’s manager, Mr. Lee, the suit says.
Within minutes, Mr. Spears was back on FaceTime with Mr. Miller and Mr. Bradley to ask them where they ended up going, the suit says. He then learned that shots had been fired into the windscreen of Mr Miller’s car and the young men were “frantic”.
“Jaden Bradley was upset and shows Kai on FaceTime Brandon Miller’s windshield with bullet holes and tells Kai Spears to call him later,” Mr. Serafini said in his affidavit.
On Friday, the Alabama athletic department referred to their March statement in which the athletic director said both Mr. Bradley and Mr. Miller were cooperating witnesses and had not been accused of any wrongdoing or violated any university policy.
Julie Tate contributed to the research.
