A youth football team has cancelled its season after the coach was shot multiple times by a parent of one of the players, apparently in retaliation for not adding his son to the starting lineup.
Shaquille Latimore, an assistant coach for the St. Louis Bad Boyz team, was holding a practice on Oct. 10 when the incident occurred, NBC affiliate KSDK reported.
Latimore, 30, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the angry parent first confronted him several weeks ago, starting a feud.
It came to a head, he said, when the parent showed up at practice and shot him four times in front of a group of nine-year-old and 10-year-old players.
Daryl Brian Clemmons, the father of one of Latimore’s players, later turned himself in and was arrested in connection with the shooting and charged with first-degree assault and armed criminal action, according to court documents.
“I didn’t see his gun until it was already too late,” Latimore told the Post-Dispatch. “I ran, and he shot me in the back. I fell, and he shot me a couple more times.”
Then, he said, the gunman stood over him, taunting him.
“After he shot me,” Latimore recalled, “he was like … ‘I told you I was going to pop your (expletive).’”
Latimore is now at home recovering after spending several days in hospital. He told CNN that the bullets struck several of his organs and that he “still (has) bullet fragments” in his body.
A probable cause statement, viewed by NBC, says that before shots rang out, Latimore “pulled his gun out and gave it to someone to hold and that the defendant subsequently shot him multiple times while he was unarmed.”
Latimore told the Post-Dispatch that he usually carries a gun to practice, as a way of feeling protected in an unsafe neighbourhood.
Now, however, the team’s coach and families are expressing their disappointment in having their season cancelled, after the City of St. Louis ended their participation.
“I will step back just so they can let them have a season; don’t do that to them,” Latimore told WCAX in Vermont.
The city’s recreation division released the following statement regarding the team’s season:
“After a series of incidents perpetrated by adults which culminated in a shooting, the recreation division decided to suspend the team’s participation in the CityRec Legends Football League. League rules are in place to ensure the protection of our youth participants.”
The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis is partnering with the city to offer counselling to the players and others who witnessed the shooting.
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