Joeviair Kennedy, a redshirt freshman basketball player for Western Michigan, was charged with murder in connection with the shooting death of another student at an off-campus apartment in Kalamazoo, Michigan.<\/p>\n
Kennedy, 20, was arraigned Monday and also faces armed robbery and felony gun charges.<\/p>\n
Kennedy is accused of fatally shooting Jacob Jones while he and another man, as yet unidentified, robbed the 19-year-old Thursday evening.<\/p>\n
Kennedy was taken into custody Friday and wore an orange jumpsuit during his arraignment while answering, “Yes, ma’am,” when asked if he understood the charges against him.<\/p>\n
Kennedy was suspended by the school Friday after being identified as a person of interest in the shooting. As of this Monday evening, Kalamazoo police had not yet responded to a request for more information about the alleged second assailant.<\/p>\n
On Saturday, men’s basketball Coach Steve Hawkins said, “It’s a devastating loss for our university. It’s a devastating tragedy for everybody involved.”<\/p>\n
“Lives were changed forever, and so, we’re very, very respectful of that,” Hawkins said after a win over James Madison. “We’re very shook by the whole thing. Now, it’s up to us to try and – as you always do, trying to mentor young people – you just try and pick up the pieces and move forward. There’s a lot not known. So that’s where we’re at.”<\/p>\n
A Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety detective testified at the arraignment (via MLive.com) that witnesses said two men entered the apartment and shot Jones when he stood up from a couch. They then demanded money, phones and marijuana from the other four people there at the time.<\/p>\n
According to the detective, one of the people in the apartment tackled one of the robbers, which caused him to drop a pair of phones, one of which was later linked to Kennedy. The WMU athlete also matched a description of one of the robbers, and the detective said that, until Thanksgiving, Kennedy had lived in an apartment building adjacent to where the shooting occurred.<\/p>\n
A man who said he was Kennedy’s uncle was also present at the hearing. “I don’t know who did it, but I know he didn’t do it,” Lucious Kennedy, who drove to Kalamazoo from Kentucky for the arraignment, said (via MLive.com). “… I feel bad for the family. But that’s not my nephew.”<\/p>\n
Kennedy was a standout basketball and football player at Muskegon High, located about 85 miles northwest of the WMU campus. The 6-4, 190-pound swingman was averaging 7.4 minutes per game for the Broncos.<\/p>\n
Jones was a from Onsted, Michigan, who was majoring in exercise science (via wmich.edu). “The WMU community is stunned by the realization that a promising life has been lost,” the school’s president, John Dunn, said in a statement Saturday.<\/p>\n