Plenty of questions remain unanswered in Jasper Howard murder

It’s supposed to be such an open and shut case. We learn that a suspect in the murder of a UConn football player is a black kid from Hartford who isn’t a student and we immediately assume the worst: He must be a gangbanging drug dealer and it was only a matter of time before he killed an innocent, upstanding individual.

Just as quick, we go into Law & Order mode in an attempt to determine John W. Lomax’s motive. He must have been so jealous of all the attention Jasper Howard and his teammates were receiving following their homecoming victory that he couldn’t take it anymore and just snapped. He must be a pathetic loner. Women probably loathe him.

Then we celebrate the victim – as we should. Anyone who can escape Howard’s neighborhood in Miami and be track to graduate from college deserves to be praised. Do you realize that more than half of that city’s students never finish high school? By those standards, Jazz had already made it. He was going to break free from the vicious cycle of poverty. That’s how we should remember Howard. A well-liked, good-looking football player with such a bright future who was killed on Homecoming Day, of all days.

What we shouldn’t do is try to make him the hero in the altercation that cost him his life. As Hartford Courant columnist Jeff Jacobs wrote earlier this week, there is no such thing in situations like these. And as the cliché goes, there are three sides to every story.

In this case, we have the accused murderer, a thug who comes from the lock your doors, roll up your windows and drive fast streets our parents warn us about as children. Then we have Jazz, the kid who was on top of the world following one of his best games as a Husky. The innocent athlete who was just trying to break up a fight, as some originally claimed

And of course, we have the 21 page police report, which shouldn’t necessarily be taken as the whole truth, but does give us a little bit more insight into what actually occurred the night Howard was killed. For instance, there are witnesses who say the whole ordeal began with a group of Howard’s teammates disrespecting a female. That led to words being exchanged between the football players and Lomax.

Words became fists. Lomax and another suspect, Johnny Hood, claim the football players swung first. After the police broke the fight up and arrested Hood, the report suggests that Lomax and another man went back to their car and armed themselves.

When the two groups met up again, a melee ensued. That’s when eyewitnesses say Howard wasn’t actually playing the role of peacemaker. At least two people, including one his teammates, say they saw Howard throwing punches at Lomax and Lomax swinging back with his knife. Soon after, Howard screamed, “They got me! They got me!” and fell to the ground.

A single stab wound to the abdomen ended Howard’s life.

His tragic death is the end-result of a silly fight over comments made to a woman. To be clear, I still believe Howard deserves to be remembered in an overwhelmingly positive light and that Lomax, if convicted, deserves to spend the rest of his life rotting away in prison like all murderers.

But that doesn’t mean there still aren’t plenty of questions that need to be answered in this story. This didn’t happen on the streets of Miami or Hartford. It happened on a college campus in the middle of nowhere, where underage drinking and plagiarism is the major concern, not murder.

Lomax and his friends had to know that. Everyone who heads to Storrs for a weekend of partying knows that. The most trouble you should ever run into at UConn is with an RA who won’t allow you into the dorms because you’re not a registered guest.

So what makes two guys feel so threatened that they need to run to their car to obtain their just-in-case weapons?

And why were the football players still around looking for a fight?

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Random Rumblings: Media had an agenda with Limbaugh

I agree with Rush Limbaugh about as often as he agrees with the President, but he was spot-on when he blamed the liberal media for thwarting his bid to own a piece of the St. Louis Rams last week. The controversy was your classic example of a media-created, media-driven story that only started to make headlines when the right players were asked the right questions about the conservative talk show host.

Think about it. The players who told the New York media that they would never play in St. Louis if Limbaugh had anything to do with the team were Bart Scott and Mathias Kiwanuka. These aren’t your average football players who can’t break double digits on the wonderlic test. Scott majored in business at Southern Illinois, one of the best public schools in the Midwest. Kiwanuka went to Boston College and is the grandson of a former Prime Minister.

There aren’t many guys in the league more capable of offering an intelligent, eloquent opinion than those two. In fact, as I wondered earlier this week, there probably aren’t many guys in the league who would have had an opinion on the subject at all. Would Eli Manning actually have anything valuable to say? How about Braylon Edwards? As long as it’s not Cleveland, he doesn’t care where he’s playing.

The guys that asked Scott and Kiwanuka about Limbaugh knew exactly what they were doing and their mission was accomplished. A firestorm ensued. The only real loser here is Limbaugh, which isn’t a bad thing. I’m certainly not going to shed any tears for a man who pollutes millions of minds each year, but the question has to be asked: If the media asked a guy who went to Florida State about Limbaugh, would the rest of us have been in such an uproar?

***Condolences must go out the family and friends of Jasper Howard, the UConn football player who was stabbed to death early Sunday morning. It’s too early to tell exactly what took place on the Storrs campus, but this much is clear: All colleges, particularly the ones with big time athletic programs, need to do a better job of monitoring the outsiders they let on campus.

As someone who has spent plenty of time making a fool out himself during Spring Weekend, I can tell you firsthand that there is almost nothing preventing anyone from heading over to Xlot or Celeron for a night filled with booze, couch fires and yes, plenty of fights. Sounds like something similar happened on Homecoming night. Only much worse.

***After being stripped of play-calling duties by higher-ups, is Jim Zorn the coach of Washington Redskins in name only?

***Anyone who had the New York Giants atop their power rankings heading into week six completely forgot that the team had play four of the worst six teams in the league and should have lost to an average Dallas team.

The best team in the league, New Orleans, set them straight on Sunday.

***Thank you the Philadelphia Eagles for making me the guy who couldn’t make it to week seven in my survivor pool.

***I think the Phillies and Dodgers could go the full seven games, but it’s hard to get excited for a race for second place, which is exactly what the NLCS is this season. No one is beating the Yankees.

***Connecticut star Maya Moore tipping (they called it dunking) a ball in the basket at midnight madness Friday night was the number one play on SportsCenter. Moore may very well end up the winningest college basketball player in history and has the chance to be the greatest women’s player ever, but she only makes SportsCenter when she’s trying play like the guys.

This is one of the biggest problems with women’s basketball. Those who enjoy watching the sport appreciate it for the play calling, the backdoor cuts and the excellent shooting. We don’t care if Moore can dunk or not.

***I’m not sure how far the USA soccer team can go at the World Cup, but I know I’ll be checking football odds at some online sports betting site to figure out if they’re worth betting on. After watching the late goal that helped the team tie with Costa Rica last week, it’s safe to say I’m pumped up for next summer.

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