Through their attorneys, the players denied everything, even being there. All three of the players charged had pretty good games against the Fighting Irish. But to no avail: Notre Dame won in overtime.
In New London, Connecticut, Matthew Chew loved art, music, his family, body piercing, and roaming the dark and dangerous streets of downtown as if he did not have a care in the world. That was before Chew died at the hands of a black mob playing the Knockout Game. To this day, Chew’s friends insist New London is safe. They believe that Chew’s murder “was a random thing,” and that “violence can happen anywhere. There are home invasions in rich communities.”31
This version of the game began one night in October 2010. The twenty-five-year-old, free-spirited Chew was walking home after work at a downtown pizza restaurant. While Chew worked to save money for college, six black men nearby played Xbox, watched TV, and decided they were bored. So they set out to play the Knockout Game: Lethal edition.32
Manuel Maccin Ortiz, a friend of the killers, described it this way on his Facebook page:
Nigga, yu just see someone walking nd then you hit him. Its not that hrd mnd. If they got money then yu take they mney.33
By the time this mob found Chew, they had already planned how they would surround him so he could not escape—as another potential victim had earlier in the evening.
The game began. They stabbed Chew six times. He died. Game over.
It did not take police long to catch the mob. The trial was uneventful and the outcome never really in doubt. Witnesses made sure of that. But the sentencing came as a bit of a surprise to some. One was sentenced to thirty-five years to life. Others received a fraction of that.
Twenty-one-year-old Brian Rabell was ordered to spend eight years in prison. He participated in the planning and beating of Chew but not the knifing. Rabell wore rosary beads around his neck at sentencing and promised to be a good person “once he gets out.” That made a positive impression on Judge Susan Handy. “You were so much better than this, Mr. Rabell,” said Handy at sentencing last week. Rabell’s lawyer said his client deserved a light sentence because he was a graduate of a technical school and was also very, very sorry.34
Handy sentenced another defendant, Rashad Perry, to fifteen years. Perry was part of the planning and beating but not the knifing. Investigators said Perry laughed during the killing. They said Perry was the man who dared another defendant to use the knife to kill someone.
On_Facebook, Perry’s friends bragged about how he did not snitch.
During the sentencing Mathew Chew’s mother was showing the court some photos of her deceased son when a bailiff had to warn members of the Perry family not to scoff at her. Even so, the judge told Perry’s family she “sympathized with how they have lost one son to murder and another to prison. She also told Perry to act responsibly during his sentence, saying he is young and intelligent enough to turn his life around.” said the New London Patch. Perry’s life was not a “throwaway,” said Judge Handy.35
The others received similar sentences last week, ranging from five to eight years.
Some of the residents of New London, friends of the defendants, spoke out in the comment section of the New London Patch on behalf of the killers:
“Its [sic] Just Sad Too [sic] See This Happening Too These Young Beautiful Black Boys, And Its Also Sad For The Chews. My Heart Goes Out To Both Families God Bless,” said Samantha.36
Many of the killers’ friends pitched in on Facebook:
“Free my nigga quisy … and the rest of them.”
“Free my brothers.”
“Free my niggas.”
“These boys up there do not belong in jail.”
“No matter what anyone says, real friends will stick up for their friends even if they are wrong. I will rep for them till the day I die.”37
But all the attention on the predators from Samantha and Judge Hardy and friends did not sit well with other folks in New London. Commenting in the same Patch article the responses were venomous:
“Samantha, Young Beautiful Black Boys? Are you completely brain dead?” said Leon Weastie in the Patch. “Foul, cowardly fatherless pack beasts. Why God ever stretched a patch of skin over these soulless animals is beyond me.”
“Samantha, Why do you refer to the low life killers as ‘YOUNG BEAUTIFUL BLACK BOYS’?” asked Sally Eldridge. “And oh by the way, Samantha you need to do some soul searching. Those boys as u call them are disgusting excuses for humanity.
“Young Beautiful Black Boys?” What about the “Young never hurt anyone White Boy who was MURDERED”?” asked Kim McCorkindale.38
In New Orleans, police say they are “baffled.” So is the daily newspaper.
Three black men in New Orleans stalk and stomp a man almost to death. They laugh. They linger. They beat him some more. They move on. Then return and kick him in the face.
SCAN ME!
VIDEO: New Orleans, Back for More
“I’ve never had an incident like this. Usually there’s a reason, and usually it’s robbery,” Detective Michael Flores told the Times-Picayune last week. “Not in this case.”39
Cops and reporters may not be able to figure it out. But at least one person in New Orleans who posted at Times-Picayune figured it out. “It’s called the ‘Knockout Game.’ Go Google it because it’s happening all across the country, but the lame stream media is very silent on the subject.”40
Early in the evening the mob had tried to start the Knockout Game with someone else, but when that person acted as if they had a weapon, the game was over before it began. The mob moved on to the easier target, a person who now awaits reconstructive surgery to repair the broken bones in his face. Meanwhile, the baffled police look for suspects.
When going through my research I was looking for a story I recalled about a black mob that beat a Pittsburgh teacher. The video had gone viral. I hit the play button to refresh my memory and soon I was looking at something unfamiliar. It was a security cam video from 2012 of a black mob beating a teacher--just not the one that went viral and was seen around the world. That was a different mob in Pittsburg beating a different teacher. The one I found was a bit more mundane, as violent events are often described when they happen to other people:
Teacher walking down the street. Black people coming from the other direction. They attack him. Chase him. And he falls down in front on a car, which almost runs him over but not quite.41
The incident I was searching for happened a few months later. The teacher got hurt pretty badly, not just from the punch but from hitting his head on the curb.42 A Pittsburgh television talk show host said it was not a mob, because only one person punched the teacher. When I pointed out the others were laughing and congratulating him and made no move to help the teacher but instead ran away, the Pittsburgh TV guy said I was fanning the flames of hatred—or whatever people like that say when they see something they cannot refute.
Down in Tuscaloosa, it would have been just another Knockout Game except for one thing: The assailants in this black mob were all members of Alabama’s 2013 National Championship football team.
Late one Sunday night on the campus of the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa, Samuel Jergens was returning to his dorm when three black men asked if they could borrow a lighter. That is the last thing he remembers before waking up on the sidewalk, bloody, with head injuries and bruises. His friend Chris Burks told the campus paper: “His left side of his face was gigantic. The jacket he was wearing and his headphones were completely drenched in blood, the bottom half of his face was completely covered in blood; he was bleeding badly from his lip. He had clearly been badly beaten.”43
An hour later, the three members of the Crimson Tide did it again. Both men were beaten unconscious with “excessive force”: punched and kicked about the body and face, say police reports. Both students were robbed as well. One lost a backpack with an Apple MacBook computer, the other his wallet. Police arrested Tyler Hayes, Eddie Williams, and Dennis
Pettway in connection with the beating, and Brent Calloway for using a debit card stolen during the robbery.44
All four are freshman and were among the most heavily recruited high school seniors in the country. Three had extensive playing time this year; Williams was a redshirt freshman. Calloway has a previous arrest for possession of marijuana in the fall of 2011 while he was a redshirt freshman.
Three of the players confessed to the involvement in the beating and robbery. But Calloway is taking a harder line on Twitter:
“first it wasn’t a credit card and 2 I wasn’t even awake during the robbery you don’t kno what happened so dont try me dude,” @HoneyBear#21
All four were suspended from, then kicked off, the team. Parents and high school coaches were shocked. Greg Seibert coached the six-foot-two, 285-pound Pettway at Pensacola Catholic High School. He told al.com:
There are times that in the maturation process we thought he would be a little more vocal, a little more bringing people along with him. He’s got a little bit of immaturity in him that would lead him -- if he’s around people that have some dominant personalities -- into situations that are negative. About 95 percent of the time, he was OK. There’s 5 percent where he would talk too much in class or be late or something like that. Nothing that ever rose to the level of what we’re dealing with today.45
One of the four was arrested the day before for carrying a loaded pistol without a permit. Eddie Williams was arguing over charges for gas at a local convenience store and was “acting erratic” when the attendant called police and they found the weapon. He was charged and released after posting $500 bond. Williams was the only one of the four without extensive playing time on this year’s national championship team.46
Students are trying to make sense out of it. Several of those who commented on the attack at local news sites observed that the beating was just another example of racial violence that is often unreported or ignored. Others said race had nothing to do with it: “Every culture commits crimes,” said David Claussen. “Open your eyes and quit being a racist.”47
But even before the wounds healed, the pleas entered, or the sentences handed down, some Tide fans were pleading for mercy. After all, writes Alex Scarborough for ESPN, Ray Lewis came back after being involved in a double murder, so why not these four?
It was a short-sighted decision that got the players into this mess. Is it really smart to make the same mistake twice? Would it not be wise to take a step back, examine all the options and find a solution that would benefit both the player and the program?
Can’t the two coexist? For once, can’t the value of a young adult’s future equate to the value of national championships? Dismissing the suspended players would be nothing more than an attempt to save face by the university. It would serve the image and not the individual.
A bad apple can spoil the bunch, but who decided a person is capable of rotting beyond repair? Only in college football would such sanctimonious logic be tolerated.
The Baltimore Ravens never backed away from Ray Lewis when he was implicated in a murder investigation. He went on to become the face of the franchise, winning two Super Bowls while developing into a spiritual mentor to countless professional athletes.
America loves its comeback stories. Hold off six months or a year, let the dust settle. Once the memory fades, we’re back with open arms. Many want to see redemption. They hope for it.
Why cut the cord entirely before allowing the wounds to heal? Is it really better to cast someone off and simply hope they find their way? Must every punishment be so harsh?48
Others pointed out this could have been the most pointless robbery in history: The athletic dorms are always stocked with free food. And, said another Tide fan at al.com: “I bet the poor guy would have taken them to Red Lobster, just so he could tweet that he just ate lobster with Eddie Williams, Tyler Hayes, D.J. Pettway, and Brent Calloway.”
Not all Knockout Games turn out so poorly for the victim, as we shall soon see in Meriden, Connecticut.
3
MOMS FIGHT BACK
The Knockout Game has a new rule: Don’t piss off the moms.
They learned it the hard way down in Springfield, Missouri.
This version of the Knockout Game began like most others. A black mob found a defenseless white college student. They punched him in the face, stopping only when they got tired and he got knocked out. Then they ran away, laughing hard and loud. They left MSU student Trevor Godfrey bleeding, unconscious, and shaking with convulsions.
Trevor’s ordeal began in January 2012. He was living next door to a house popular with Missouri State University-Spring-field football players as well as members of Omega Psi Phi, an elite black fraternity.
It was a few minutes before 2 a.m., and the crowd next door was getting rowdy. The neighbors had damaged other cars during their parties, so Trevor figured he would move his car before the partygoers damaged it. He slipped on his shoes and winter coat. No one in the backyard said anything to him. He got as far as his car and regained consciousness in an ambulance. He does not recall the moment of the attack.1
Trevor’s roommates found him because they were outside looking for the people who played the Knockout Game with one of them a few minutes before. Same people. Same party. Right next door.
Usually that is the end of it—just another case of racial violence played out by the hundreds in more than eighty cities across the country—but this time it was different. This time the victim and his family decided not to walk away. “Trevor never saw them when he was almost killed, so he never had a chance to put up a fight,” said Trevor’s mom Sherry Godfrey. “But we are fighting back now and we will not stop.”
Three people lived in the house where the party was. All were connected to Omega Psi Phi, a black fraternity, including the fraternity president.
The house was not an “official” facility of the fraternity. But lots of frat members hung out there during their frequent parties. Lots of football players too. And they were not playing nice,_as one partygoer told police:
A group of football players came to the house extremely intoxicated. He said they were out of hand and were tearing up Kelvin Jones’s house. At one point they broke a coffee table. He said this specific group of football players was in and out of the house all night. When Trevor Godfrey was assaulted they were outside. At some point they all ran to the front of the house and some came inside. This was when Trevor Godfrey was assaulted. Most of this drunken group left the house before police arrived. He said he did not see the assault but believed it was likely they were involved.2
One of Trevor’s roommates said he saw the next door neighbor, Kelvin Jones, running away from where Trevor was lying unconscious. According to the police report he
saw the group of people run from the rear parking area to the front porch of (Kelvin’s house). He said several in the group were laughing and giggling about something. He also thought he saw Kelvin Jones in the crowd.3
As the police arrived, a group of people were leaving, including several MSU football players, past and present. Police talked to Kelvin Jones and frat president Emmanuel Chapman but they stonewalled police. Finally the police were able to question the partygoers who remained.
Although one witness saw Kelvin Jones leaving the scene of the crime, Kelvin said he did not know anything about anything. He didn’t know who was outside, who assaulted Trevor Godfrey or his roommate, or where they went. The only thing Kelvin Jamaal Jones knew for sure is that he did not do it.
Curiously, a few weeks later, Kelvin Jones was one of at least two people from the party who attended an MSU rally to demand justice for Trayvon Martin. Kelvin Jones may have been reticent about talking with the police, but he was positively loquacious with a reporter. He told the local paper he “experienced racism in Springfield.”4
“Jones said he was in front of the house he rents near campus teaching some black female students some dance moves when a vehicle drove by with three
whites, one of whom shouted a racial slur.”
“It’s something they feel comfortable saying when they are in a vehicle and they can get away,” Jones said. “What we hope to accomplish is justice for Trayvon, No.1, and possibly the elimination of racism in America,” he said.5
Justice for Trevor was not on Kelvin Jones’ mind that day.
The Godfrey family was confident the police would find the criminals. That’s the kind of town they thought Springfield was. But after a few months, police suspended their investigation and the football coach stopped returning their calls. Trevor’s roommate fingered Kelvin Jones. Other partygoers dropped a dime on two former football players, Caddarrius Dotson and Byron Hightower, as well as aspiring football player Dontae Obie. But apparently the police didn’t have enough evidence.
“We even learned about another assault a few weeks later that the police say may have involved the same people who assaulted Trevor,” said Sherry Godfrey. “It was the same kind of thing: The Knockout Game at a party.”6
This Knockout Game began when an MSU student riding a bike hit a rock and found himself lying in the street right in front of a house party. A Good Samaritan from the party asked if he was OK and offered to help him up.
Then he “suddenly punched him in the face. … His mother said his nose was broken and his eye socket was fractured. He initially suffered double vision. His injuries required surgery.7
The attacker walked back to the party, laughing.
Like the assault on Trevor Godfrey, the determined mom dug to find the truth. She lived in St. Louis, where during her career as an emergency room nurse she saw dozens of victims of the Knockout Game. Never thinking one day her son might be among them. Not in Springfield.
“A couple of weeks later [she] went to the apartment building where the party was held and talked to people. She told police that someone told her he was ‘100 percent sure’ who the assailant was.”8
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