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Vanderbilt Recruit Rajaan Bennett Murdered

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CentralMOBuck;1662004; said:
Vanderbilt Commodores recruit Rajaan Bennett shot to death in apparent murder-suicide - ESPN
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Vanderbilt Commodores recruit Rajaan Bennett shot to death in apparent murder-suicide - ESPN

Running back Rajaan Bennett, one of Vanderbilt's top-rated signees for the 2010 class, was killed early Thursday morning in an apparent murder-suicide at the family's home in Powder Springs, Ga.

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution first reported the story on its Web site.

Police responded to a 911 call about 2:30 a.m. ET Thursday from Bennett's home. When they arrived about four minutes later, they heard gunshots, Powder Springs police Maj. Charles Spann told the Journal-Constitution.

Two people ran from the house following the gunshots, including Bennett's mother, Narjaketha Bennett, and his uncle, Taiwan Hunter, who had been shot. Both were hysterical, police said.

The Cobb County SWAT team was called to the scene, and officers found two people who had been shot and killed inside the home: Bennett, 18, and Clifton O'Neal Steger, 39, who died from a self-inflicted gunshot to the head, according to Powder Springs police Lt. Matt Boyd.

Police said Hunter, 32, who is Narjaketha Bennett's brother, was wounded and underwent surgery. He was in critical condition Thursday afternoon.

Steger was later identified as a former boyfriend of Rajaan Bennett's mother. No motive has been given for the shooting.

Bennett, listed at 5-foot-11 and 210 pounds, rushed for 1,857 yards and 28 touchdowns as a senior at McEachern High School and led his team to an unbeaten regular season. He was recruited by several SEC schools, including Kentucky and Tennessee, before choosing Vanderbilt.

In a statement, Vanderbilt coach Bobby Johnson said the program was "devastated" by Bennett's death and that their thoughts were with his mother and family. "As we got to know Rajaan, it became very clear to our coaches that he was a better person than he was an athlete," he said.

Later, in a meeting with reporters, Johnson's voice cracked with emotion as he recalled the day Bennett committed to Vanderbilt.

"I felt great. In my opinion, it was the best place for him. ... It was going to change his life," he said.

"Rajaan was the man of the house," Johnson added. "He took care of his brother and his mother and his sisters, and they all looked up to him. That's what he was trying to do at the end. You hate to see guys have to have that role that early in their lives, but he handled it as good as anybody possibly could have."

Bennett was rated as a three-star prospect by ESPN Recruiting, and as the 25th-best player in the Journal-Constitution's Fab 50, which was published earlier this month.

Bennett's high school coach, Kyle Hockman, said Bennett was one of the best kids he's ever coached.

"I'm sure you want to talk about Rajaan on the football field, but I promise he's a better person than he is a player," Hockman said when Bennett signed with Vanderbilt. "He has a great head on his shoulders, a guy that has been the man in his household for quite a while, yet still worked to maintain a solid GPA in class and become such a great player.

"Rajaan is both humble and hardworking. He's a guy that is very respected by his teammates and the McEachern community. I think the world of this young man," Hockman said.

McEachern principal Regina Montgomery said counselors would be at the school to help students with the grieving process, but, "we don't know what we're going to do tomorrow, we're just trying to get through today together."

"We have a population of 2,200 kids," Montgomery added, "and when you're Rajaan Bennett, you touch the lives of all 2,200."

This is the second murder that has rocked the Vanderbilt football program during Johnson's tenure as coach. Former running back Kwane Doster was shot and killed in December 2004 while sitting in the back seat of a friend's car in Tampa, Fla.

Doster had just finished his junior season at Vanderbilt. He was named the SEC Freshman of the Year two seasons earlier after rushing for 798 yards.
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Another tearful tragedy for Vanderbilt - SEC Blog - ESPN

By Chris Low

Covering SEC football, you sort of become callused to coaches being fired, players being arrested and some of the other not-so-pleasant things that occur in college sports that we all shake our heads about and wonder where it all ends.

But then you run across a story like the one that rocked the Powder Springs, Ga., community and Vanderbilt football program early Thursday morning.

Rajaan Bennett -- 18 years old and his whole life in front of him -- was dead, shot and killed in an apparent murder-suicide.

So many thoughts run through your head.

You mourn for Bennett's family and that they find a way to get through this terrible time. You mourn for all of the people at McEachern High School who loved and admired Bennett. You mourn for Vanderbilt, which has to go through this horror all over again a little more than five years after former running back Kwane Doster was shot and killed in Tampa, Fla.

The real tragedy for the Vanderbilt coaches and the Commodores fans is that they will never get to know Bennett the way the people at McEachern High School did. He had touched so many lives there and would have surely done the same thing at Vanderbilt.

In a word, he was the rock of his family, the oldest of four siblings. His father, Charles, died tragically when Bennett was just in the sixth grade. He was forced to become the man of the house and did so willingly.

He helped care for his special-needs brother and was there to fill in the gaps for his mother any way he could. All the while, he maintained a 3.3 GPA in school and became one of the top-rated running backs in the state of Georgia.

"In these situations, all kids get propped up as being unbelievable kids, but Rajaan truly was," said Kyle Hockman, Bennett's high school coach. "He was a leader for so many people. As we met this morning with our team, there were 30 different guys who stood up and said that he was their best friend, their mentor, their big brother. He was just an incredible young man."

Hockman said it's his hope that even in death that Bennett will be able to inspire the McEachern community to always strive to do better.

"Just by the way he lived his life and the way he helped others," Hockman said. "He was mature beyond his years."

Bennett was recruited by several schools, including Kentucky and Tennessee. He was one of the highest-rated players Vanderbilt had ever signed under Bobby Johnson.

In choosing the Commodores, Bennett saw the big picture, according to Hockman.

"He felt like it was a family-oriented type of place, and he also knew that if he didn't make it in football professionally that Vanderbilt was the best place for him to succeed in life," Hockman said. "For a kid as young as he was with all the awards he'd received, the attention he'd gotten and all the other things going on in his life ... to make that kind of decision tells you what an incredible person he was."
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Upvote 0
I'm not sure about having Rajaan Bennett's death in this thread. Although the police are clearly involved in this incident, virtually every other post is due to a football player being arrested, or being the alleged perpetrator of a crime.

It seems likely to me that Rajaan was defending his mother when he was shot, and is only a victim in this incident. If that ends up being the case, it seems inappropriate to have someone that died like that mixed in this thread with a bunch of knuckleheads and a few outright thugs.

It was previously posted in the SEC thread - once the facts come out, these posts may get moved over there.
 
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BB73;1662130; said:
I'm not sure about having Rajaan Bennett's death in this thread. Although the police are clearly involved in this incident, virtually every other post is due to a football player being arrested, or being the alleged perpetrator of a crime.

It seems likely to me that Rajaan was defending his mother when he was shot, and is only a victim in this incident. If that ends up being the case, it seems inappropriate to have someone that died like that mixed in this thread with a bunch of knuckleheads and a few outright thugs.

It was previously posted in the SEC thread - once the facts come out, these posts may get moved over there.
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I agree, move it.

The police legal blotter thread is our Fulmer cup stuff, not for something like this.
 
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