In an interview Monday, the grandfather of Martez Smith, one of three Southern Miss players wounded in an shooting early Sunday morning, told a local television station that his grandson has not been able to move his legs since the incident.
Sadly and heartbreakingly, it appears Smith will likely never regain the use of his legs.
According to the Jackson Clarion-Ledger, and citing “trusted sources”, one of the bullets fired that fateful morning severed Smith’s spinal cord. Smith, the Clarion-Ledger wrote, will almost surely never walk again.
The paper also reports that junior linebacker Tim Green was shot in the neck, severing his vocal cords, and junior defensive end Deddrick Jones was shot in the chest. Again, all of the injuries suffered by the players have been deemed life-threatening.
The school has yet to confirm the condition or the injuries of the players, and no arrests have been made. Earlier reports stated that authorities have not ruled out gang activity in the nightclub as the trigger for the incident.
None of the players, incidentally, were armed, and there were several other members of the football program at the club at the time of the shooting.
“We constantly talk about making good decisions with our football team,” head coach Larry Fedora said. “These are 18-, 19-, 20-year-old kids. Unless you are that age you probably do not think the same way they do. I know I don’t. Making decisions is part of the growing process and growing from a young man to a full-grown man. You have to make decisions on your own and understand that there are consequences to every decision you make. We talk about that all the time.
“Kids are going to make mistakes and they are going to pay the consequences for those mistakes and they move on and learn from them and grow. That is how they become a full-grown man.”
Our thoughts and prayers go out to all three players as they attempt to recover from this senseless tragedy.
UPDATED 1:46 p.m. ET: At a press conference conducted a short time ago, Hattiesburg police announced the arrest of two people in connection to the shootings. According to police, Patricia Loftin Brown and Cleothus Wilkerson were arrested Monday night and have been charged with three counts of accessory after the fact of aggravated assault. Additionally, an arrest warrant has been issued for Travis Brown on three counts of aggravated assault.