COLUMN: When Our Heroes Fail

*This is an opinion column*

TUSCALOOSA, AL — As Darius Miles was led down the winding concrete staircase at the Tuscaloosa County Sheriff's Office headquarters Sunday evening, we could hear him sobbing and telling a small group gathered in the adjacent parking lot that he loved them more than they could imagine.

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And between the clicking of camera shutters and the chatter of the gathered reporters and police, I was taken aback at how the 6-foot, 7-inch former Crimson Tide forward appeared so vulnerable up close as he folded into the back of a Tuscaloosa Police Department SUV.

In the moments as the patrol vehicle pulled out of the parking lot to take him to jail, I couldn't help but think of how his once-promising life was now over — viewed by many as just the latest sports hero brought down to Earth by the consequences of their own actions. He had done much better than me after all, since he had a full-ride scholarship and I'm still paying for my degrees over a decade later.

Crimson Tide basketball player Darius Miles one of two men charged with capital murder in fatal shooting on The Strip early Sunday morning pic.twitter.com/wBWybat3Ni
— Ryan Phillips (@JournoRyan) January" class="redactor-linkify-object">https://twitter.com/JournoRyan... 15, 2023

Later on, though, I had to remind myself of something else, something I believe far too many of us are guilty of in the immediate aftermath of this tragedy and others like it — the high-profile athlete's life is far from the only one that will never be the same again. But regardless of how this case turns out, Darius Miles will now forever be the only name associated with it.

After all, how many of you could tell me the name of the victim killed when former Crimson Tide football wide receiver Henry Ruggs III, allegedly driving under the influence of alcohol, crashed into her vehicle going over 150 mph?

It's the celebrities we remember, not their less-famous accomplices or the innocent victims who so often see their names fade into obscurity well before the trials start. It's a notion that underscores our priorities as a society and the premium we place on talented athletes. It also underscores society's expendable view of most athletes and how quickly they can fall out of favor.

We hold them to a higher standard and for good reason. They are gladiators and folk heroes, characters on the silver screen and do amazing things in expensive uniforms on our living room TVs.

For many, the only heroes ever mentioned are athletes.

But moments before Miles was led out, Tuscaloosa Violent Crimes Unit Commander Captain Jack Kennedy paced himself reading a prepared statement for the media regarding the shooting death of 23-year-old Birmingham native Jamea Jonae Harris earlier that morning. Kennedy was admittedly low on sleep after his unit investigated two different homicides over the weekend, but he was as steady and measured as always. I don't envy having to deliver that news.

As us in the press gaggle waited for Kennedy to give the identifications of the victim and potential suspects, as we've done as a group more times than any of us count, audible murmurs began to circulate after he said the name "Darius Miles" and mentioned that he was a member of the Alabama basketball team.

I cut my video recording the second I had a pause and went to check the online Crimson Tide basketball roster, only to find a crimson and white 404 Error message on the Google search link for Miles.

Less than 24 hours before, Miles was sidelined with a highly-publicized ankle injury as his teammates coasted to a blowout 40-point win of the LSU Tigers in front of more than 13,000 fans inside Coleman Coliseum. The team has energized the fanbase to a new level with its success thus far this season and, until Sunday, it seemed like this could be the season where the Tide finally gets it right.

But less than 24 hours after the last fans filed out of the coliseum and the players went out on the town to celebrate the big win, Miles and another man — Maryland native Michael Lynn Davis, 20 — were in handcuffs and being led to jail for capital murder.

As Patch reported Sunday evening, the shooting occurred following, of all things, a minor altercation on The Strip, the details of which are yet to be confirmed.

"A. Minor. Altercation."

Still, at around 1:45 a.m. Sunday morning, gunshots were exchanged in the area of Grace Street near the Strip. When the smoke cleared, a young mother was dead and either Davis or Miles left with a minor bullet wound.

Kennedy said Tuscaloosa Police and University of Alabama Police were initially dispatched to the Walk of Champions at Bryant-Denny Stadium after a vehicle had stopped there to ask for help upon sighting a University of Alabama Police vehicle. Given their direction, they were just a minute or two on University Boulevard from the emergency room at DCH Medical Center.

"The vehicle, in addition to the driver, contained a deceased female that had been shot," Kennedy said. "The driver reported that their vehicle had been shot into, and that he had also returned fire in self-defense, and may have struck a suspect."

Investigators have declined to provide more details as to who was injured in the other vehicle, along with not elaborating as to which of the two men charged is believed to have fired the fatal shot, due to the ongoing nature of the investigation.

But that hasn't stopped rumors from persisting as to the circumstances and the belief that other Crimson Tide basketball players were at least in the vicinity of the shooting. Indeed, Patch has been contacted by more than half a dozen sources making such claims, but has nothing in the way of confirmation.

Even Monday morning, I was asked the question when I had the honor of making a brief appearance with our friends on Tide 100.9 to discuss the incident on "Inside The Locker Room" with former Alabama basketball coach Wimp Sanderson and his son Barry — also a celebrated coach. I could offer little when asked and decided against speculation, but the theory has already taken root in the story and is yet another thread for the Twitterverse to tug on.

Alabama men's basketball head coach Nate Oats also declined to provide specifics during a press conference on Monday when he addressed the incident and was asked if any other players were present during the incident.

Citing the ongoing nature of the investigation, Oats explained that "the remainder of the team" will travel to Nashville on Tuesday to take on Vanderbilt. The only noted absence will be Miles, who UA said was no longer part of the Crimson Tide basketball team immediately following his arrest.

Apart from the untimely death of the young woman who was shot, the other possibilities in the shooting that did not come to fruition are almost as troubling.

In theory, had it gone different by just a fraction, could this story have been an obituary for Miles, the other young man or the individual that returned fire during the shooting?

What if more than one person had been killed?

What if no one had even been injured and Harris was allowed to continue being a mother?

It pains me to think a couple of seconds could have resulted in an uneventful long weekend for many of us, including the victim and suspects.

The questions are likely to haunt countless people for some time and leave them considering what could have gone differently.

Attorneys representing Miles released a statement insisting upon the young man's innocence, while providing condolences to the family of the victim and saying he looks forward to his day in court.

A composite 3-star prospect out of the prestigious IMG Academy, according to 247Sports.com, the Washington D.C. native had scholarship offers from the likes the Maryland, Georgetown and others before committing to Alabama in April 2020.

On the surface, Miles appeared to have the world on a string from an early age, but as the cliché goes, looks can so often be deceiving and should give many pause.

Indeed, as Oats pointed out on Monday, Miles left the team for an extended period of the current season to address a personal matter back home in Washington D.C.

Miles has also struggled through preseason ankle injury that had limited playing time thus far in his junior season and had him listed as out for the season as soon as the day before the fatal shooting.

Neither of these issues, Oats stressed, had anything to do with the Sunday shooting that left a 23-year-old mother dead.

This brings me back to my original point — heroes and how we view them.

I normally don't go to sports press conferences and am not a sportswriter — I leave that to the experts and made a decision against that line of work early in my career because I love sports far too much to burn myself out writing about it as my full-time work. I'd rather get burned out on politics and crime, then have sports to forget them both when I'm off the clock.

But sitting in a little desk in the packed media room downstairs at Coleman Coliseum to get comments from Oats on Monday, I found myself trying to type a draft in my notes without internet connection and was unable to remember anyone else's name in the case — neither the victim or the other suspect charged. While none of the other reporters sitting around me knew it, I could feel my ears turning red and sat there embarrassed that I had once again placed all my focus on the celebrity angle of a tragedy.

Where was my respect for Jamea Jonae Harris and her family? What about the family and loved ones of the other suspect, Michael Lynn Davis — a stark contrast to Miles whose attorneys were quick to release a statement on his behalf maintaining his innocence.

What about the family of Darius Miles? Why was I not considering how they felt in that moment?

But I'm not the only selfish jerk with tunnel vision on the periphery of this story — just go read the comments.

Scores of social media posts, far more than I could count, inserted into the national narrative everything from racial epithets and slurs to jokes at the expense of the shooting.

Given that Miles is a noted basketball player, the comparisons of shooting a basketball and shooting a gun became low-hanging fruit for the faceless, unwashed hordes on the internet.

Memes implying a friendship between Henry Ruggs III and Darius Miles.

Posts speculating on Miles being a star on the prison basketball team.

Posts calling for him to be executed without due process.

Conspiracy theories and the bot farm also ran wild and supporters of capital punishment began calling for blood before the two suspects even had an initial appearance in court. Bot posts, likely from belligerent foreign actors and reading in broken English like the infamous Nigerian Prince Scheme emails blamed Joe Biden and others blamed Black culture — namely gun violence in urban areas thousands of miles away from Tuscaloosa. For what goal I can't say, but it seems aimed at getting folks at each other's throats.

Still, very little empathy was given to the suspects, even from locals, while even less consideration was given for the victim and her family. The suspects remain in custody, but the comment jockeys have dominated the conversation with a focus on the punishment as opposed to what has been lost in all of this.

This is by no means a defense of the violence or proclamation of anyone's innocence, but an indictment of how a college athlete can be a beloved hero one minute and a hated pariah at the top of the national news cycle the next. Fodder for the feeds.

Just hours before the shooting, I saw a handful of sympathetic Alabama basketball fans sharing articles and commenting positively about Miles being out for the rest of the season with an injury.

It took just a matter of seconds for that young man to see those social media comments on his injury story go from well wishes to speculation over his guilt.

Are we not all forgetting that a mother is dead? What about the parents of the victim and both of the suspects? What about the young men and staff in the basketball program? How many lives will never be the same after this senseless violence?

Yet, to many, the killing is nothing more than a joke or an excuse to trot out bigoted political rhetoric while hiding behind a keyboard.

So I ask you: Why is it that we place these athletes, movie stars, musicians and other celebrities on such a pedestal, only for us to relish in their misery when it all topples over?

Why do we fail to realize that placing all of our focus on celebrities when they do bad things comes at the expense of the memory of any other party involved, much less the victim.

Do you remember the name of the lady that died at Chappaquiddick?

No. You remember Ted Kennedy.

In the story of this gut-wrenching violence, the narrative shouldn't be anchored by basketball or Crimson Tide fandom. It also shouldn't include a sniff of humor at the expense of those involved.

Rather, the focus should be on due process, patience, accountability and justice.

A once-promising basketball career is now likely over, sure, but there is also a mother who is never coming home again and two young men whose lives will never be the same, even if they do somehow manage to earn their way back into the outside world.

Imagine the weight on the families of all involved.

Again, I think back to watching that TPD patrol vehicle pull out of the lot with Miles handcuffed in the back seat. Just a few hours before, to the outside world, he seemed to be living a dream so many of us plebes couldn't fathom — playing a sport at the highest collegiate level for a nationally ranked program in front of thousands of adoring fans.

He might have been a kind of Crixus to some and a bouncing son, nephew or cousin to others. But now he's become the latest meme and capital murder suspect in Tuscaloosa County.

While many will argue it's his own fault, and time could prove them right, I can't count the number of other felons that have achieved the same level of notoriety in my career and I've covered so many more brutal murders that barely elicited a peep from readers.

Especially in a smaller city like Tuscaloosa, these Division I athletes live in a fish bowl and this celebrity status comes with more perks than many of us commoners can imagine.

But then consider the other side of that, like when former Alabama defensive coordinator Pete Golding became national news for his 2022 DUI arrest in Northport. It was the first misdemeanor DUI arrest publicized in Tuscaloosa Patch history and hopefully the last.

Miles represents just the latest disgraced hero in the annals of Alabama athletics, but it shouldn't be so simple in this reporter's opinion.

It's crucial at such a divisive point for us as a citizenry to be patient and let the facts be presented and considered. As plugged in as this reporter and his colleagues are, even we don't have the absolute definitive account of that Sunday morning because we were not there.

This incident should give us pause as a community, force us to think hard about our priorities and reconsider how we approach contentious subjects on social media and in life.

The goal at this point should be justice for Jamea Jonae Harris. Not memes. Not basketball careers.

Ryan Phillips is an award-winning journalist, editor and opinion columnist. He is also the founder and field editor of Tuscaloosa Patch. The views expressed in this column are his own and in no way reflective of any views held by our parent company or sponsors.