MCPHERSON, KAN. (AP) - A second former McPherson College football player is charged in the beating death of a football player from nearby Tabor College during an off-campus party in central Kansas, prosecutors confirmed Thursday.
Dequinte Oshea Flournoy, 19, of Dallas, was charged Wednesday with aiding and abetting second-degree murder, the McPherson County prosecutor’s office said. Alton Franklin, also 19 and from Dallas, made an initial court appearance Monday on an identical charge.
Police found Brandon Brown, 26, of Sacramento, Calif., lying unresponsive near a road while responding Sept. 16 to a report of loud music and a disturbance at a McPherson home. The father of a 3-year-old son and 7-month-old daughter never regained consciousness and died six days later. Police have released little information about what happened.
Brown, a 6-foot-3, 280-pound defensive lineman, began playing at Santa Ana College in California when he was 24 and transferred to Tabor this academic year as a junior. Tabor is in Hillsboro, about 25 miles east of McPherson. It has more than 600 students and is affiliated with the Mennonite Brethren faith.
McPherson College released a statement late Wednesday saying it was cooperating with law enforcement and urging anyone with information to contact police.
“We continue to pray for the family of Brandon Brown, as well as for the students arrested,” the school’s president, Michael Schneider, said in the statement. “One brief moment of anger on September 16 has changed the lives of everyone in the McPherson and Hillsboro communities. Despite our shock and grief, we are determined to heal together and to emerge stronger.”
Flournoy and Franklin are being held on $500,000 bond. Their attorneys haven’t returned phone calls from The Associated Press seeking comment.
Both suspects have been suspended from McPherson College, where they played football in 2011. Coach Pete Sterbick told The Salina Journal that Flournoy, an offensive lineman, left the team in August and Franklin, a linebacker, was dismissed that same month before the team’s first game of the year.
Tabor and McPherson, both NAIA colleges and members of the Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference, are scheduled to play each other Oct. 20.
Schneider said earlier McPherson and Tabor colleges don’t have a rivalry that would account for what happened.
“This isn’t about a football rivalry,” Schneider said. “It’s about a tragic act of violence.”
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