Bec Oakes
It's safe to say parents can get a little bit too invested in their kids' hobbies, but one father's out-of-control anger at his son's lack of time on the football field led to him shooting the coach.
St. Louis youth football coach, Shaquille Latimore, was shot in the back, leg, arm and abdomen in front of his 9 and 10-year-old players on Tuesday (October 10), it has been alleged.
Latimore volunteers as an assistant coach for the St. Louis BadBoyz, a city youth recreational team, alongside his cousin.
He was badly wounded when Daryl Clemmons allegedly shot him four times when a feud about his son's lack of playing time boiled over during practice.
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According to a probable cause statement provided by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office, Clemmons was supposedly 'upset with him for not starting his son.'
"After every game, he would try to critique me," Latimore said.
“I didn’t see his gun until it was already too late,” the 30-year-old told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch from his hospital bed. “I ran, and he shot me in the back. I fell, and he shot me a couple more times.”
Clemmons then allegedly taunted him while he was on the ground before other adults jumped in.
Latimore said, “After he shot me, he was like … ‘I told you I was going to pop your [expletive]... I heard people running and screaming."
No one else, including the children that witnessed the shooting, was injured.
Clemmons, 43, faces charges of first-degree assault and armed criminal action. He remains in custody.
Latimore also had a gun when he showed up to field on Tuesday, claiming it's located in a bad part of the city, but handed the weapon to another adult before practice started.
“I gave my gun to someone else to hold. I didn’t want [Clemmons] to feel threatened,” Latimore reportedly said. He added that he 'would've defended [himself]' if he'd had the gun on him.
Following the shooting, the coach, who is also a father-of-five, was taken to the hospital for surgery. He is now in a critical but stable condition.
The victim’s mother, SeMiko Latimore, called the shooting 'senseless.'
“We’re supposed to be bringing these kids off the streets and teaching them what to do, what not to do. We’ve got all these kids traumatized because their coach was shot in front of them,” she said.
“He could have easily hit one of those children.”