Brandon Brown (June 13, 1986September 22, 2012) was a

college football College football (french: Football universitaire) refers to gridiron football played by teams of student athletes. It was through college football play that American football rules first gained popularity in the United States. Unlike most ...

athlete for the Tabor College Bluejays in

Hillsboro, Kansas Hillsboro is a city in Marion County, Kansas, United States. Hillsboro was named after John Gillespie Hill, who homesteaded in the area in 1871.Hillsboro Kansas, The City on the Prairie; Wiebe, Raymond F; 1985. As of the 2020 census, the pop ...

. Brown was a defensive lineman from

Sacramento, California ) , image_map = Sacramento County California Incorporated and Unincorporated areas Sacramento Highlighted.svg , mapsize = 250x200px , map_caption = Location within Sacramento C ...

and was found beaten and unresponsive on a street in nearby

McPherson, Kansas McPherson () is a city in and the county seat of McPherson County, Kansas, United States. As of the 2020 census, the population of the city was 14,082. The city is named after Union General James Birdseye McPherson, a Civil War general. It i ...

early Sunday morning, September 16, 2012. He later died from his injuries at a Wichita hospital on September 22. Brown transferred to Tabor from a community college in California as a

redshirt Redshirt, Red Shirt, or Redshirts may refer to: Entertainment * ''Red Shirts'' (film), a 1952 film about Anita Garibaldi by Franco Rossi * Redshirt (stock character), originally derived from ''Star Trek'', a stock character who dies soon after b ...

Junior Junior or Juniors may refer to: Arts and entertainment Music * ''Junior'' (Junior Mance album), 1959 * ''Junior'' (Röyksopp album), 2009 * ''Junior'' (Kaki King album), 2010 * ''Junior'' (LaFontaines album), 2019 Films * ''Junior'' (1994 ...

for the team.

Aftermath

On October 4, 2012, the

Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference The Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference (KCAC) is a college athletic conference affiliated with the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA). The KCAC is the oldest conference in the NAIA and the second oldest in the United Stat ...

and presidents of McPherson and Tabor agreed to cancel their game scheduled for October 20, 2012. The game was cancelled in light of the ongoing investigation into the murder of Tabor football player Brandon Brown. Two former players from the nearby

McPherson College McPherson College is a private college associated with the Church of the Brethren and located in McPherson, Kansas. It was chartered in 1887 and is accredited by the Higher Learning Commission. History During their 1887 Annual Meeting, the Ch ...

Bulldogs The Bulldog is a British breed of dog of mastiff type. It may also be known as the English Bulldog or British Bulldog. It is of medium size, a muscular, hefty dog with a wrinkled face and a distinctive pushed-in nose. and Dequinte Oshea Flournoy. Both were on the football roster at McPherson for the previous year, and Franklin was listed as a sophomore linebacker at the beginning of the 2012 season. He was dismissed from the team before the incident and Flournoy was also no longer a member of the team. Michael Schneider, President of McPherson College said that McPherson and Tabor colleges do not have a rivalry that would account for what happened. The murder garnered nationwide coverage, including

ESPN ESPN (originally an initialism for Entertainment and Sports Programming Network) is an American international basic cable sports channel owned by ESPN Inc., owned jointly by The Walt Disney Company (80%) and Hearst Communications (20%). The ...

Sports Illustrated ''Sports Illustrated'' (''SI'') is an American sports magazine first published in August 1954. Founded by Stuart Scheftel, it was the first magazine with circulation over one million to win the National Magazine Award for General Excellence twic ...

The Huffington Post ''HuffPost'' (formerly ''The Huffington Post'' until 2017 and sometimes abbreviated ''HuffPo'') is an American progressive news website, with localized and international editions. The site offers news, satire, blogs, and original content, and ...

USA Today ''USA Today'' (stylized in all uppercase) is an American daily middle-market newspaper and news broadcasting company. Founded by Al Neuharth on September 15, 1982, the newspaper operates from Gannett's corporate headquarters in Tysons, Virgini ...

, and

Fox Sports Fox Sports is the brand name for a number of sports channels, broadcast divisions, programming, and other media around the world. The ''Fox Sports'' name has since been used for other sports media assets. These assets are held mainly by the Fo ...

. The

Church of the Brethren The Church of the Brethren is an Anabaptist Christian denomination in the Schwarzenau Brethren (german: link=no, Schwarzenauer Neutäufer "Schwarzenau New Baptists") tradition that was organized in 1708 by Alexander Mack in Schwarzenau, Germa ...

also carried information to its church and schools nationwide. Both colleges were founded by the Church of the Brethren.

Preliminary hearing

Investigation of the crime was handled in cooperation by the McPherson Police Department, the McPherson County Sheriff's Office, and the

Kansas Bureau of Investigation The Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) is the state bureau of investigation of the U.S. state of Kansas. The KBI is a division of the Kansas Attorney General and responsible for providing investigative and Crime lab, criminal laboratory service ...

. After a preliminary hearing on January 31, 2013, the suspects Franklin and Flournoy were bound over for trial on charges of being accessories to second-degree murder. The McPherson County Medical Examiner testified that Brown's

blood alcohol level Blood alcohol content (BAC), also called blood alcohol concentration or blood alcohol level, is a measurement of alcohol intoxication used for legal or medical purposes; it is expressed as mass of alcohol per volume or mass of blood. For example ...

was .30, well above the legal limit in the state of Kansas. Attorneys for the defense argued that their actions were

self-defense Self-defense (self-defence primarily in Commonwealth English) is a countermeasure that involves defending the health and well-being of oneself from harm. The use of the right of self-defense as a legal justification for the use of force in ...

, saying "The defendants were using force to try to remove them from the premises." David Harger, Franklin's attorney continued, "Those people were armed. They then, as we know from police, stabbed the door with a knife." Both Franklin and Flournoy entered a

plea In legal terms, a plea is simply an answer to a claim made by someone in a criminal case under common law using the adversarial system. Colloquially, a plea has come to mean the assertion by a defendant at arraignment, or otherwise in response ...

of not guilty.

Trial

On Tuesday April 2, 2013 DeQuinte Flournoy, 20, entered a plea of no contest to a lesser charge of aggravated battery. This allowed him to avoid a trial and he is expected to testify against his co-defendant Alton Franklin at his trial in the following week. On June 4, 2013, he received a sentence of 2 years probation. Alton Franklin faced trial on charges of murder and manslaughter. Two witnesses, testified they saw Franklin hit Brown. While Flournoy testified that he did hit Brown for safety reasons he did not see anybody else hit Brown. The defense argued that there was no evidence that Franklin had struck anyone. The jury found Franklin not guilty and he was released from jail.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Brown, Brandon 2012 murders in the United States 2012 NAIA football season American football in Kansas Deaths by person in Kansas Kansas Collegiate Athletic Conference September 2012 crimes in the United States

Aftermath

Preliminary hearing

Trial

See also

References