Monday 24 June 2013
Aaron Hernandez's precedent plight come into hub
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Aaron Hernandez's precedent
plight come into hub
Saturday, police go into
Hernandez's home for at slightest the third time this week. It was not known if
Hernandez was there. Officers used up more than three hours at the home send-off
around 5:30 p.m. ET. They did eliminate several bags.
Monday,
a jogger found the body of Hernandez acquaintance Odin Lloyd, 27, a semi-pro
football player, in a nearby industrial park. Police said Lloyd was shot in the
head.
Hernandez,
23, has not been publicly named a suspect, but ABC News, citing anonymous
police sources, has reported that police could try to arrest Hernandez on
charges of obstruction of justice. ABC News has reported that Hernandez
destroyed his cellphone and video surveillance system and had his home
professionally cleaned Monday, the day Lloyd's body was found.
AREA
VERDICT: Locals assume he's guilty
A clerk
in the Attleboro District Court told USA TODAY Sports no arrest warrant had
been issued when the offices close Friday.
Much of
the news media focus this week has been on North Attleboro, not far from the
Patriots' Foxborough, Mass., home. But Tucker said news media also descended on
Bristol, a city of about 60,000 people 20 miles from Hartford. Bristol is home
to ESPN, but Tucker said it had a small-town vibe, adding, "all and sundry
knows everyone."
And
now, few people know what to think.
Tucker
said he had been asked frequently this week by friends about Hernandez and the
investigation into Lloyd's death.
Last
week another man from Connecticut filed a civil lawsuit in Florida saying
Hernandez shot him in the face in February, causing him to lose an eye; he is
seeking damages in excess of $100,000.
"I
hope it's not true, but I can't make assumptions on if it's true or not. I
really don't know, and I don't want to guess," Tucker said.
Tucker
said he had made the two-hour drive from Bristol to Foxborough several times to
watch Hernandez play with the Patriots and caught up with Hernandez each time
he was there. Tucker said he didn't want to bother Hernandez while he was in
the midst of the investigation and would wait until there was resolution to
contact him. But he said it was difficult to reconcile the friend and coworker
he remembered with the reports he saw on television.
"I
just don't want the papers to make him seem like a crazy person, you know? I
feel bad for the people it happened to, the guy who died and the guy who got
shot. My condolences go out to them. But I just don't like the fact that he's
mixed up in all of this," Tucker said.
But
there have been signs of trouble in Hernandez's personal life dating back to
high school, issue that followed him to the University of Florida and now to
his life as an NFL star.
In
previous interviews and multiple news reports, Hernandez and his family said
Hernandez was devastated by the sudden death of his father, Dennis, in January
2006, when Hernandez was 16. Dennis' death, the result of complications from
hernia surgery, left Hernandez feeling lost and angry, his mother, Terri, and
brother, D.J., told USA TODAY Sports in 2009.
Hernandez
responded by lashing out at his family, smoke marijuana and spending his free
time hanging around with a rough crowd of young men in Bristol.
"He
would rebel. It was very, very hard, and he was very, very angry. He wasn't the
same kid, the way he spoke to me. The shock of losing his dad, there was so
much anger," Terri Hernandez told USA TODAY Sports in 2009.
Still,
as a senior at Bristol Central High that fall, Hernandez was a star on the
field, leading his team to an 8-1-1 record while scoring 17 touchdowns. The
previous season, Hernandez set a Connecticut state record with 1,799 receiving
yards and set another record when he had 376 receiving yards in a game. He was
named to USA TODAY Sports' All-USA squad as the first-team tight end for the
2006 season.
"It
was phenomenal. It was a good thing to watch and experience, to have amazing
like that happen in the small little city that we have," Tucker said.
Hernandez
initially wanted to play at the University of Connecticut, where his father and
brother both played, but after Dennis Hernandez's death, Hernandez picked
Florida, largely to get away, he told The
Hartford Courant at the time.
Hernandez
enrolled at Florida in January 2007, two months after turning 17, and trouble
soon followed. During his freshman year, before he turned 18, Hernandez was
arrested for getting into a fight with a bouncer at an off-campus bar (he
received deferred prosecution in that case after being charged as a juvenile),
and the Orlando Sentinel reported Hernandez was questioned by
Gainesville police about a shooting that injured two men after a Gators game
later that fall. Friends from Connecticut were with Hernandez that night, the Sentinel reported.
Hernandez
was suspended for the 2008 season opener and later acknowledged the suspension
was punishment for testing positive for marijuana.
But by
his junior year in Gainesville, Hernandez, his mother and coach Urban Meyer
seemed convinced Hernandez' off-field troubles were over. Hernandez was an
important part of the Gators' 2008 national challenge team, had developed into
college football's best tight end (he won the John Mackey Award that year) and
was spending time at Meyer's home, sometimes for Bible study. Meyer, it
appeared, had become the father figure Hernandez needed.
"When
your guy, your idol, your soul is taken from you, how do you deal with that? I
just think there's a part of his life that was not there. He needed discipline;
he needed someone to talk to," Meyer told USA TODAY Sports in 2009.
For the
first time since his father's death, Hernandez finally seemed happy.
"He's
my Aaron again," Terri Hernandez said in 2009. "Just now everything's
getting better, and it took him three years. I thought I lost him for good. He
wasn't the same kid. Now he's back, the same fun-loving Aaron."
Hernandez
left Florida after his junior season, but NFL teams weren't convinced he was
clear of his past troubles. He fell to the fourth round of the draft in 2010,
largely because of concerns about his marijuana use and temperament.
One NFL
general manager told USA TODAY Sports recently that Hernandez's scouting file
contained multiple red flags, and an official from another team said the
character concerns were significant enough for the team to remove Hernandez
from its list of draftable players.
Team
executives who spoke to USA TODAY Sports did not want to be identified, given
the sensitivity of the ongoing homicide inquiry.
After
the draft, the Boston Globe reported Hernandez had failed
multiple drug tests, perhaps as many as six, while at Florida, which led
Hernandez to issue a statement admitting to the one failed test that led to the
2008 suspension.
In that
statement, which was released through the Patriots, Hernandez said he was as
candid as he could possibly be with NFL teams about football and his personal
life.
"I
regret what happened; I learned from it and will make better decisions going
forward," Hernandez said in that 2010 statement.
The
Patriots twice decided Hernandez was worth the risk, first when Bill Belichick
drafted him in the fourth round and again last year when they offered Hernandez
a long-term contract extension that would pay him $40 million through 2018.
Hernandez
cried at a news conference announcing the deal and called that August day one
of the best of his life. He gave $50,000 of his new paycheck to the Myra Kraft
Foundation.
"You
get changed by the Bill Belichick way; you get changed by the Patriot
way," Hernandez said at that news conference.
But a
civil complaint filed this month in a U.S. District Court in South Florida by a
Connecticut man raised questions about how much Hernandez had truly changed. In
the complaint filed by attorneys for 30-year-old Alexander S. Bradley,
Hernandez is accused of shooting Bradley in the face while the two were in a
vehicle early Feb. 13 after a night of partying at a strip club in Miami.
According
to the complaint and a police report from the Palm Beach County Sheriff's
Office obtained by USA TODAY Sports, Bradley lost his right eye and has lost
much of the use of his right arm. He said he needed further surgeries and skilled
pain and difficulty eating and was requesting damages in excess of $100,000.
Bradley
refused to cooperate with the police investigation, giving only a vague
description of "black and Hispanic" men that shot him. When he
wouldn't speak any further with investigators, the case was deemed inactive,
and it will not be reopened without Bradley's cooperation.
Hernandez's
relationship with Bradley is unclear, though both are from Connecticut, with
their hometowns located about 20 miles apart. Bradley was convicted of selling
drugs in 2006 and spent 18 months in jail.
Bradley's
lawsuit was initially filed four days before Lloyd's death in Massachusetts.
The
NFL, Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league's security staff are closely
monitoring the developments in the homicide investigation. Hernandez has not
previously violated any of the league's conduct policies but could be subject
to punishment from the league, even without an arrest. Goodell suspended
Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger for four games after
Roethlisberger was the subject of a sexual assault investigation in Georgia and
a lawsuit in Nevada. Roethlisberger was never arrested.
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