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 people exchanged gunfire in vehicles near the Strip, the nightlife district adjacent to the Tuscaloosa campus, the county sheriff’s office said. from Tuscaloosa.
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.”
The basketball program said Saturday that Miles, a junior forward, had been ruled out for the rest of the season after a preseason injury worsened.
It was not clear if Miles was no longer a student or if the institution can expel him 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. Sheriff’s officials did not say which of the two suspects allegedly opened fire or whether they believe both did.
“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 Walk of Champions adjacent to the strip at Bryant-Denny Stadium to report that a passenger, still inside, had been fatally 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 they spoke to witnesses and viewed security video, the office said.
One of the two suspects was wounded in the shooting, the office said; he did not identify which one or mention 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.