Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher fatally shot his girlfriend Saturday, then drove to Arrowhead Stadium and committed suicide in front of his coach and general manager. (Dec. 1)
The Kansas City Chiefs said their game Sunday afternoon against the Carolina Panthers would go on as scheduled, even as the franchise tried to come to grips with the awfulness of the death of linebacker Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend.
A spokesman for the team told The Associated Press that head coach Romeo Crennel plans to coach on Sunday, despite witnessing Belcher's suicide Saturday.
Saturday began like any other for the Kansas City Chiefs during the NFL season, their general manager and coach at work early to put final touches on this weekend's gameplan. Then they got a call to hurry to the parking lot.
The two men rushed through the glass doors of Chiefs headquarters and came face-to-face with linebacker Jovan Belcher, holding a handgun to his head.
Belcher had already killed his girlfriend and sped the short distance to Arrowhead Stadium, right past a security checkpoint guarding the entrance. Upon finding his bosses, Belcher thanked general manager Scott Pioli and Crennel for giving him a chance in the NFL. Then he turned away and pulled the trigger.
The murder-suicide shocked a franchise that has been dealing with controversies now made trivial by comparison: eight consecutive losses, injuries too numerous to count, discontent among fans and the prospect that Pioli and Crennel could be fired at season's end.
Belcher and girlfriend 22-year-old Kasandra Perkins reportedly had a tumultuous relationship and, police said, had been fighting in the hour leading up to the shooting. Perkins had been out late Friday night, attending a Trey Songz concert. Haley said Belcher and Perkins had met through another Chiefs player.
On her Facebook page, Perkins, who is from Dallas, posted several pictures of the couple and their daughter, including one of Belcher gently cradling the baby. That photo's caption reads “My loves.”
Another picture features Belcher leaping over a player to get to Arizona's quarterback and is captioned “In LOVE with SUPERMAN.”
Among the “likes” on Belcher's Facebook page was one for “Male Athletes Against Violence,” a project founded at his alma mater, the University of Maine, aimed at raising awareness about the problem of male violence against women.
The two of them left behind a 3-month-old girl. She was being cared for by family.
"I can tell you that you have absolutely no idea what it's like to see someone kill themselves," said Kansas City Mayor Sly James, who spoke to general manager Pioli shortly after the shootings.
"You can take your worst nightmare and put someone you know and love in that situation, and give them a gun and stand three feet away and watch them kill themselves. That's what it's like," James said. "It's unfathomable."
Chiefs quarterback Brady Quinn told The Kansas City Star that when the team met later Saturday morning, head coach Crennel broke the news to them.
"It was obviously tough for coach to have to tell us that," Quinn said. "He really wasn't able to finish talking to us. We got together and prayed and then we moved on."
But Quinn said the team was so stunned, it was hard to digest what had happened.
"It's hard mostly because I keep thinking about what I could have done to stop this," he said. "I think everyone is wondering whether we would have done something to prevent this from happening."
The 25-year-old Belcher was from West Babylon, N.Y., and played college football at Maine. He signed with the Chiefs as an undrafted free agent, made the team and hung around the past four years, eventually moving into the starting lineup. He played in all 11 games this season.
The NFL released a statement expressing sympathy and pledging "to provide assistance in any way that we can." The players' association has also been in touch with members of the Chiefs.
"We sincerely appreciate the expressions of sympathy and support we have received from so many in the Kansas City and NFL communities, and ask for continued prayers for the loved ones of those impacted," Hunt said. "We will continue to fully cooperate with the authorities and work to ensure that the appropriate counseling resources are available to all members of the organization."
The drama unfolded early Saturday when authorities received a call from a woman who said her daughter had been shot multiple times at a residence about five miles from the Arrowhead complex. The call came from Belcher's mother, who referred to the victim as her daughter.
"She treated Kasandra like a daughter," Kansas City police spokesman Darin Snapp said, adding that the woman had recently moved in with the couple, "probably to help out with the baby."
Police then got a phone call from the Chiefs' training facility, and Belcher's description matched the suspect description from the initial address. Snapp said officers pulled into the practice facility parking lot in a matter of minutes, in time to witness the suicide.
Chiefs, Panthers to face off day after murder-suicide
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