FanHouse Ncaa Fb Police Blotter

On Nov.12, three University of Tennessee freshman, Nu'Keese Richardson, Mike Edwards, and Janzen Jackson-- were arrested and charged with attempted armed robbery. Last week, Lane Kiffin dismissed Richardson and Edwards, the two men who approached the vehicle and demanded money, from the football team.

Now, charges against Jackson and the woman driving the 2010 Toyota Prius, Marie Montmarquet, have both had their attempted armed robbery charges dropped.

"The investigation and careful review of all relevant evidence failed to show ... Ms. Montmarquet or Mr. Jackson had prior knowledge that the attempted robbery was going to take place and were unaware something had occurred until after they pulled out of the Pilot store," according to the DA's statement.

"Therefore, there is an insufficient legal basis to continue a prosecution against them.

"Both Ms. Montmarquet and Mr. Jackson cooperated with the Knoxville Police Department from the time they were pulled over and voluntarily responded to police questioning. Their statements assisted the investigation and were consistent with the other evidence developed."

In February, Nu'Keese Richardson was one of the crown jewels in Lane Kiffin's first recruiting class at Tennessee.

Kiffin wooed the four-star recruit, a longtime Florida commit, away from Urban Meyer and then bragged about the recruiting victory at a UT recruiting breakfast. At the time Kiffin incorrectly argued that Meyer had committed a recruiting violation by contacting Nu'Keese during his visit to Tennessee.

From there Kiffin also engaged in a public feud with the head coach at Pahokee High School. Richardson was, in fact, the spark that turned Urban Meyer and Lane Kiffin's war of words into a conflagration. Richardson was the apostrophe that loosed a thousand ships, and now he's the apostrophe that will never play football again for the University of Tennessee. On Monday, Kiffin announced that both Richardson and fellow freshman recruit Mike Edwards have been permanently dismissed from the team.

"After extensive and thorough research of the situation over the last four days and considering various disciplinary options, I've decided it's in the best interest of our program to remove Nu'Keese and Mike," Kiffin said. "As I've said many times before, we hold our student-athletes to an extremely high standard on and off the field. Our student-athletes must be responsible members of society, and this type of conduct will not be tolerated.

Former Nebraska running back Thunder Collins' life seemed to be just one misstep after another once he joined the Cornhuskers nearly a decade ago.

Years of being on the wrong side of law have caught up with Collins, who was sentenced to life in prison Thursday in Omaha, Neb., for his role in the 2008 murder of one man and shooting of another man. Collins, who played for the Cornhuskers from 2000-02, was convicted of first-degree murder and several other charges in August.

The 29-year-old was facing a mandatory life in prison sentence after being convicted of first-degree murder, but the Douglas County District Court judge tacked on another 110 years for second-degree murder, assault and two weapons charges.

Less than a day after Lane Kiffin bragged that no football players had been arrested in 11 months at Tennessee, that record came tumbling down. In a big way.

According to police at 1:43AM Thursday, three freshmen on Tennessee's football team, safety Janzen Jackson, wide receiver Nu'Keese Richardson, and defensive back Mike Edwards, were arrested and charged with attempted arm robbery. The trio allegedly attempted to rob three men parked in a 1998 Hyundai Elantra at a Pilot gas station on Knoxville's Cumberland Avenue.

One of the football players reportedly brandished an air pistol while wearing a black hoodie and demanded money. Another football player wearing a black hoodie opened the other door. The three men said they had no money, at which point the football players fled in a 2010 Toyota Prius driven by a woman, 22-year-old Marie Montmarquet.

Police later pulled over the Prius near the Gibbs Hall dormitory, uncovered two black hoodies, an air pistol, and led the men back to the Pilot gas station where they were identified by their would-be victims. Immediately the Internets exploded. Here was a story that offered the improbable combination of crime vehicle -- 2010 Toyota Prius, location -- the Vols' attempted robbery was in the parking lot of the gas station, Pilot, that is owned by UT's most prominent booster, an air pistol and two of the most famous recruits from the 2009 football season.

Let's dive in.

Connecticut police have charged a man with the murder of Connecticut football player Jasper Howard. John William Lomax, 21, has been charged with murder and conspiracy to commit assault.

His attorney insists Lomax was attempting to break up the fight. His bond was set at $2 million.

Police charged Hakim Muhammad, 20, with conspiracy to commit assault, and 21-year-old Jamal Todd with pulling the fire alarm, which reportedly began the fight.

None of the three men are listed as students or employees at the university, according to the school's Web site.

Howard, 20, was stabbed just after 12:30AM, Oct. 18, following a school-sanctioned dance on the Connecticut campus. He was airlifted to a Hartford hospital where he died later that morning.

A University of Iowa student was arrested during last Saturday's Iowa-Arkansas State game for repeatedly harassing a Hawkeye football player from her seat in the first row behind the Iowa bench.

Brittney Mears, 22, was charged with third degree harassment for repeatedly yelling a player's name. The player was not identified in the criminal complaint, but a court order issued on Wednesday forbids Mears to have any contact with starting defensive end Adrian Clayborn.

Players get things yelled at them all the time during games. Virtually all of it gets ignored, and the ones who do the yelling rarely if ever get arrested. So what happened here?

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- In a game of inches, none may mean more to Mike Locksley than the ones he didn't take Sept. 20. The first-year New Mexico coach was all but out the door following a heated altercation with wide receivers coach J.B. Gerald, when, he said, he "sort of lost it."

Those inches may wind up costing him everything.

"If I had that moment back ... ," Locksley said to FanHouse in his office Tuesday night. "I was literally walking out the door because I knew I was getting heated and it kept going back and forth. I'm walking out the door and I look over and another word was said and it was set off."

In that moment, he grabbed Gerald, an assistant who had followed him halfway across the country from Illinois. An altercation ensued. When the dust cleared all that was certain was that Gerald had a split lip. And two coaching careers were beginning to unravel, the coda to an argument from earlier in the day, an argument with a decade of history.

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ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. -- The University of New Mexico athletic department has turned the incident involving head coach Mike Locksley and his assistant coach J.B. Gerald over to the university's human resources department, athletic director Paul Krebs said Tuesday.

Gerald filed a police report Sept. 20, claiming that Locksley punched him in the face and split his lip following an argument during a staff meeting. News of the altercation began seeping out slowly the following day, but it became an avalanche this week as the school opened up about the incident.

Locksley has not shied away and he has admitted his mistake to his team, Gerald, Krebs and the media. Locksley and Krebs dispute the fact Gerald was punched in the face, citing no witness accounts. Still, they realize it all looks bad on the first-time head coach, his program and the university.

College football's opening week should be about celebration but its taken a rough turn after an Alabama football player was shot Monday night. Senior defensive end Brandon Deaderick was shot in the arm in an apparent robbery outside a Tuscaloosa apartment complex.

The Tuscaloosa News says his injuries aren't life-threatening which is great news but authorities are actively searching for his attacker and appear to have made an arrest. It was anticipated Deaderick would be a starter this season on a loaded Alabama defense but obviously, his physical recovery could take him away from Saturdays for a while.

Oklahoma football coach Bob Stoops was mentioned as one of the Sooners coaches guilty of committing several minor NCAA violations in connection with apparent inadvertent phone calls and text messages, according to a report obtained by the Associated Press on Friday.

Documents from Oklahoma's self-report show that Stoops and assistant football coach Jackie Shipp, along with assistant women's basketball coach Stacy Hansmeyer, made impermissible phone calls to a recruit. Head women's basketball coach Sherri Coale also mistakenly sent a text message to a perspective student-athlete.