Angry Father Shoots Youth Football Coach for Not Starting Son, Police Say

AP/

A youth football coach in St. Louis has been hospitalized in critical but stable condition after being shot at practice, allegedly by a father who was upset about his son’s playing time, authorities said.

Shaquille Latimore, 30, was shot multiple times Tuesday evening at Sherman Park. Daryl Clemmons, 43, later turned himself in, police said. He was charged Wednesday with first-degree assault and armed criminal action.

Clemmons does not yet have an attorney who could speak on his behalf, according to Missouri’s online court-reporting system. A call to a phone number listed for him went unanswered. He remains jailed without bond.

Relatives told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that Shaquille Latimore has undergone surgery and is in good spirits.

Shaquille Latimore coaches a little league football team made up primarily of 7- and 8-year-olds, his mother, SeMiko Latimore, told the newspaper.

Shaquille Latimore told police that Clemmons was “upset with him for not starting his son,” according to a probable cause statement provided Thursday by the St. Louis Circuit Attorney’s Office.

SeMiko Latimore called the shooting “senseless.”

“We’re supposed to be bringing these kids off the streets and teaching them what to do, what not to do. We’ve got all these kids traumatized because their coach was shot in front of them,” she said. “He could have easily hit one of those children.”

The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis is partnering with the city to offer counseling to the players and others who witnessed the shooting.