A former University of Alabama basketball player was behind bars Sunday night after being arrested in connection with a fatal shooting near campus, authorities said.
Darius Hairston Miles, 21, of Washington, DC, was one of two men arrested after an exchange of gunfire between people in vehicles near the Strip, the nightlife district adjacent to the Tascaloosa campus, the Sheriff’s Office said. of Tuscaloosa County.
He was booked on suspicion of murder and was being held without bail, the office said in a statement. The victim was Jamea Jonae Harris, 23, he said.
None of the other parties was affiliated with the institution. It was not clear if Miles retained a private attorney for the case. The public defender’s office in Tuscaloosa did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Alabama Athletics said Sunday that it extends its deepest condolences to the victim’s family and friends and announced that Miles was no longer a part of its basketball team.
Miles’s name was not on the online institution’s basketball roster Sunday night. The university said in a statement: «He has been removed from our campus.»
It was not clear if Miles was no longer a student or if expelling him from the institution could be done without due process. The sheriff’s statement referred to his status with the university in the past tense.
The shooting was reported early Sunday morning in the nightlife district.
«It appears at this time that the shooting was the result of a minor argument that occurred between the victims and the suspects after they met along the strip,» the sheriff’s office said.
Shortly before 2 a.m., a driver pulled over in a University of Alabama police vehicle on the strip-adjacent Walk of Champions at Bryant Denny Stadium to report that a passenger, still inside, had received a fatal shot, the office said.
The driver told investigators that someone in another vehicle opened fire at his vehicle just off the Strip and that he returned fire, possibly hitting someone in the opposite vehicle, he said.
Detectives with the Sheriff’s Violent Crimes Unit tracked down two suspects after speaking with witnesses and viewing security video, the office said.
One of the two suspects was wounded in the shooting, the office said, but it did not identify which one or say if he was hospitalized.
The other suspect, also booked on a capital murder charge, was identified as 20-year-old Michael Lynn Davis of Charles County, Maryland.
The university said it is cooperating with the investigation.
Members of the campus community affected by the violence can connect with campus counselors, including on the Martin Luther King Jr. Day holiday Monday, the university said in its statement.
lindsey pipia contributed.