White Girl Bleed a Lot (7 page)

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?
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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.

T
he 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.
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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.
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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.
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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.”
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“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.
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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.”
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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.
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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.”
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According to police reports the person that assaulted the student was Obie. That would be Dontae Obie, aspiring football
player and MSU student, also present at the Kelvin Jones party where Trevor was attacked. Dontae, his mom, and his lawyer submitted to an interrogation. He said he was at the party where Trevor was beat but not at the party where the biker was punched. But he might know who did it. When asked about the assault that took place on the bicyclist, Dontae Obie claimed to have been at a “club” on that night. He heard an individual named “Boobie” whose first name was Byron was responsible for striking [Trevor Godfrey.]

With that information they were able to determine “Boobie” or “Byron” was Byron Hightower Jr. Hightower was a member of the MSU football team. He told police he just happened to be in Springfield in January and again a few weeks later. But as far as assaulting anyone, he did not do anything or know about anyone who did.

The police had come to another dead end. Many would have walked away.

Not Sherry Godfrey. She may not have known who tried to kill her son, “but we know for sure someone from that party knows something. Someone from the football team or the fraternity knows who assaulted Trevor.”

Sherry decided to go public. She requested a copy of the police reports and started her own investigation. She found many of the people questioned were football players and frat members. She read their Tweets and their Facebook pages. Kelvin Jones proclaimed on his Facebook page that he was “Not a Fighter, But will Knock you the F*CK out.”

Sherry created a Web page, where she posted all the information she had collected about the night of the attack, including graphic photos of Trevor’s wounds. Soon she was deluged with support from all over the country and getting more than a thousand visits a day. The university even called her, but the players
who were suspects remained on the team.

Finally, almost one year after the assault, the local newspapers and TV stations ran a story about Sherry Godfrey’s Web site.

And the crime is in the cold case files.

Not everyone is a victim.

D
eandre Felton was a good boy, his family and friends agree. He was also a leader. But on this night in September of 2012, Deandre and his crew were bored. The mall was closed, but he and his boys were high on drugs and still wanted to have fun. So Deandre came up with what was not a new idea, but fun nevertheless. They decided to beat someone up. They had just come from a local park where Deandre and fifteen others beat up two girls, sending one to the hospital with a broken arm. Then Deandre decided to blow off a little steam and play the Knockout Game. He knew the game was usually pretty safe—for the attacker, that is.
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In Meriden, Connecticut, victims aren’t likely to carry concealed weapons, nor do they fight back. As one player said in Philadelphia as his victim begged for mercy: “It’s not our fault you can’t fight.”

Deandre and his crew found their victim a few minutes after leaving the mall. Soon Deandre and his confederate DeShawn
Jones were peeling off from the group, heading for a guy walking home from work. Alone. We don’t know his name or race or anything about him other than he was The Wrong Guy.

With their friends lurking less than one hundred yards away when Deandre and DeShawn attacked, the guy fought back. He pulled a knife. Soon Deandre was dead and DeShawn was on his way to the emergency room.

It took the police a few days to piece it together. While they were on the case, Facebook pages, Twitter streams, and a televised candlelight vigil were full of praise and happy memories for the fallen Deandre. Full of promises to catch the person responsible. Full of rumors about what happened, including some who thought Deandre could be the next Trayvon Martin, the Florida teenager who was killed by a neighborhood watch commander.
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Police delayed releasing the results of their investigation for two weeks out of respect for Deandre’s family and on the advice of community leaders. Curiously, the police report did not mention the earlier mob attack involving Deandre. Nor did the police mention what, if anything, they did out of respect for the two female victims of the earlier assault.
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But the report left little doubt about what happened that night.

They talked to other members of Andre’s mob, plus a dozen more people, and they all said the same thing: Deandre and DeShawn attacked the Wrong Guy who then stabbed them in self-defense. The families did not want to hear that.

DeShawn’s mother said the police had it wrong. She claimed that her son was attacked. “This is a monster, this is a monster after children,” Alexis Jones said. “This man is still on the streets and my son is sitting home trying to recover. My son has two stab wounds in his back, one on his side, and he has a slice on his neck.”
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Deandre’s mother joined in: “I just don’t believe it. My son was not raised to be a troublemaker,” said Valda Felton. “I don’t
want them or anyone else to make my child out to be a villain.”

Family friend and minister Rev. Dante Moss, who officiated at Deandre’s funeral, held a press conference and called the police findings a “comic book.” Moss compared Deandre to Trayvon.
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Police say not one of the people present corroborated Reverend Moss’s claim. But Reverend Moss just kept on. He posted almost a dozen times on Deandre’s Facebook page. No one said a thing about the two women beat up earlier in the night.

People posted comments that supported Deandre and DeShawn on a local news site. Deandre’s aunt pitched in: “Deandre was trying to help his friend after he got stabbed,” said Talitha Frazier “Then Deandre got stabbed in his back. I have one question. In the state of Connecticut at what point are you allowed to take someone’s life? Someone please answer that for me. I am his aunt.”
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Katie Lynn posted this after the funeral: “Deandre lost his life sticking up for his friend. He’s a hero. People just need to stop pointing fingers and realize the grief that family is going through.”
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