re: New York times story on the Alabama basketball murder case

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If Kai was not there, I still think they would have a hard time creating a successful defamation lawsuit against the NYT.

Reporting that a guy was in a car, essentially a witness, doesn't really hurt his reputation or any other "injury". Just my .02

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Yup.

I'm going to paste the relevant parts of the NYT article for y'all here.

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Jaden Bradley, a freshman guard, was also at the scene. A review of surveillance video showed his car was in a narrow lane that intersects University Boulevard, parked ahead of Miller and Spears. Behind Miller and Spears was a Jeep with Harris in the front passenger seat.

The video showed Davis approaching the Jeep from behind, along the driver’s side. Soon, flashes from gunshots could be seen entering and exiting the Jeep. After several shots were exchanged, Davis appeared to have been hit and staggered backward into a telephone pole. He regained his balance and circled in front of Bradley’s car while continuing to fire at the Jeep. Two bullets struck the windshield of Miller’s car. Neither struck Miller or Spears.

“I’m sorry, I’m not going to be able to speak about that,” said Spears, a freshman who has not played this season and who is the son of Marshall University’s athletic director, Christian Spears. Kai Spears briefly spoke Wednesday in the locker room Alabama was using for practice ahead of its first-round N.C.A.A. tournament game against Texas A&M-Corpus Christi on Thursday. Miller also declined to comment.

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On Feb. 21, a police detective testified at a pretrial hearing about the presence of Miller and Bradley at the scene. He said that Miles had texted Miller, telling him to pick him up and that “I need my joint,” referring to Miles’s gun, which he had left in the back seat of Miller’s car.

The detective also made note of an unidentified passenger in Miller’s car. A person familiar with the case identified that person as Spears. That person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters in the case.

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NYT exposed the name of one of the dudes wearing the poor taste T-shirts in Nashville:

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The T-shirt was deemed in such poor taste that the SEC said that any fans wearing it would be prohibited from entering the arena for Sunday’s championship game. A conference spokesman said afterward that security officials had not spotted anyone wearing the T-shirts.

“It’s meant to make you think,” said the man, who identified himself as Jimmy Johnson, from Mobile, Ala., as he stood in the concourse just after halftime on Saturday. The man, whose real name is Jason O’Rear, hung up without answering questions on Wednesday when he was contacted by the Times.

Last week he called the shooting a tragedy but said that Oats and Miller were being unfairly attacked, using an expletive. “The media is going to cancel Miller,” he said. “Now, I don’t condone anything about what happened, but I know where the media is going to come crashing down and try to ruin a guy’s career. I know where the clicks are.”

He was asked if he would feel differently if his daughter had been killed.

“I don’t know,” he said.

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But in a surveillance video, when Davis hobbles toward a parking lot — after firing at least eight bullets and taking one in the shoulder — Bradley, the freshman from Rochester, N.Y., peels out and turns onto University Avenue.

As Miller follows after them, the Jeep, with the mortally wounded Harris, sideswipes Miller and Spears, one bullet-riddled car screaming past another in a tragedy that could have been even worse.

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I thought I saw somewhere that they said Davis fired the bullets that hit Miller's windshield but I can't find it now. Seems implied. They don't give any clarity about who fired first but it's consistent with the ESPN article (based on watching video) that stated Davis approached the Jeep on the driver's side.

So other than putting Kai Spears out there as the previously unnamed passenger and outting one of the naughty T-shirt wielding fiends, I don't see anything much new here.

But it is interesting that Bama is denying Spears was there. Spears himself didn't give such an out and out denial when asked. Surely the dashcam video from Miller shows whether he was there or not.