Alabama basketball manager says he was at deadly shooting, not player

An Alabama basketball manager says he was present and a passenger in the car of star freshman Brandon Miller during a January shooting in Tuscaloosa.

A 23-year-old woman was killed in the shooting and two men have been charged in her death. Police said Miller’s car was hit by stray bullets during the incident that involved multiple cars.

The New York Times reported in March that it was Kai Spears, an Alabama player, not Cooper Lee, the manager, who was in Miller’s vehicle.

“I can confirm that I was the passenger in Brandon Miller’s car at the time of the shooting,” Lee wrote in an email to The New York Times. Lee has not been accused of wrongdoing.

Spears sued the New York Times in Alabama federal court this week for damages for defamation and invasion of privacy after being named in the March story detailing what happened.

Spears’ father, Christian, who is the athletic director at Marshall, said in a March statement that he was “disappointed in the irresponsible and demonstrably false reporting by the NY Times.”

A Times spokesperson said the article would be corrected.

“We have a longstanding policy of correcting errors,” Danielle Rhoades Ha said in a statement. “Based on information in the affidavit and new reporting by our newsroom, we believe our original story was not accurate and plan to append an editor’s note to the story.”