Three Eastern Michigan University Football players, Quincy Jones, Darius Scott and Jay Jones, were brought into court on assault charges, Wednesday according to a report from MLive.
The alleged victim, Demarko Taylor, 24, is the cousin of Kristopher Pratt, the Detroit man who pleaded guilty to the second degree murder of EMU wide receiver Demarius Reed. According to the police, no weapons were used in the assault.
The incident occurred Friday at the intersection of Huron River Drive and Le Forge Road.
Taylor was with two friends and was walking home from the Kampus Korner store when the assault happened.
“Watch, they’re going to turn around and jump me,” Taylor recalled saying to his friends in a phone interview to the Ann Arbor News.
Pratt took a plea deal over the summer of 18 to 30 years in exchange partly for testifying against another suspect, Ed Jameal Thomas. Thomas was found not guilty.
“We are aware of the situation involving our student athletes,“ Greg Steiner, the assistant director for Media Relations at the Department of Athletics, said by email.
However because of FERPA, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, he said he could not divulge the process of discipline the players may face.
“The three will not be returning to campus while the situation is investigated by the Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards,” Athletic Director Heather Lyke said in a statement. “We are extremely disappointed about this. We take allegations of criminal activity seriously and expect our student athletes to meet high standards of academic and personal
conduct.”
According to Steiner, the university is adhering to standard procedure in dealing with this issue.
Taylor is an Ypsilanti resident who lives in the same University Green apartment building Reed did and testified in the case against Thomas. Taylor said that he tried to tell Jones, Scott and Jones that he had nothing to do with Reed’s murder but they did not listen.
“They’re trying not to hear it. They want revenge or something,” Taylor said.
According to a source close to the football team which does not wish to be identified, all three players were very close to Reed.
Thomas has said this is not the first time that he faced a confrontation with EMU football players, saying that he was almost assaulted in the Rec/IM earlier this year.
Al three players are out on $5,000 bonds, according to Washtenaw County Court Records. Demarius Reed was an EMU wide receiver from Chicago, studying communications. He was found shot dead in his University Green stairwell last October 18th.
