Indianapolis Colts wide receiver
Marvin Harrison is under investigation in his hometown of
Philadelphia in a shooting that took place earlier this week, a
source close to the investigation told Anthony Gargano of
Philadelphia's WIP Radio.
Harrison was interviewed by police
about the shooting near his North Philadelphia bar this week.
Lt. Frank Vanore said the
investigation of Tuesday's shooting was continuing. Harrison has not
been arrested or charged.
"He was interviewed,"
Vanore said Friday. "Why he was interviewed, that is all part of
the investigation. No one is a suspect."
After the first day of Colts rookie
minicamp, coach Tony Dungy said he knew little more than had been reported.
"My phone has been ringing,
too, but I don't have any details," Dungy said. "I really
don't have any more information than you do."
Calls by ESPN to Harrison and his
agent have not been returned. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the
league was "aware of the report, and we are looking into it."
The source said the alleged victim
came into the bar, Playmakers, about 5 p.m. and engaged in an
argument with Harrison, who was at the bar. The victim then left the
bar, heading to his car, with Harrison following. Gunfire broke out,
the victim was hit in the hand, and a young girl was slightly injured
by flying glass from a car that apparently was hit by a bullet.
Police came to scene, but the
victim did not identify a shooter. On Wednesday, according to the
source, ballistic tests showed that the gun that had fired the shots
was a custom-made Belgian weapon, and police determined that Harrison
owned such a gun. A source told ESPN.com's John Clayton that the gun
is registered.
Police then went to a Philadelphia
car wash owned by Harrison to question him about the gun. Harrison
admitted owning such a weapon, but claimed it never left his suburban
Philadelphia home.
However, the source said the gun
was discovered in a bucket at the car wash, and tests showed that it
had fired seven bullets that matched those found at the scene.
The source said police were
contacted Friday by an attorney representing a second alleged victim
in the shooting, and police are now waiting for that individual to
come forward.
Harrison, a prep football star at
Philadelphia's Roman Catholic High, has owned Playmakers since July
2004, according to state records.
Harrison has played his entire
12-season career with the Colts and is the franchise's record-holder
in every major receiving category -- receptions (1,042), yards
(13,944), touchdowns (123) and 100-yard games (59). The 35-year-old
is one of only four players in league history to top 1,000 receptions.
But after eight consecutive Pro
Bowl appearances, last season was the most frustrating of Harrison's career.
He injured his left knee against
Denver on Sept. 30, missed all but five games, and finished with 20
receptions for 247 yards and one TD.
Team president Bill Polian said in
February that Harrison was recovering from offseason arthroscopic
surgery on his right knee and had been rehabilitating the inflamed
capsule in his left knee. He was not expected to be completely
healthy for the start of Indianapolis training camp July 24.
Typically quiet Harrison has a
reputation for being humble on and off the field.
But he's still one of the Colts'
most visible players -- and their longest-tenured veteran. Harrison,
along with Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James, were nicknamed Indy's
triplets in the late 1990s. He was a first-round draft pick in 1996
out of Syracuse and wound up the best receiver in a class that
included Keyshawn Johnson and Eric Moulds.
The Indianapolis Colts won’t
comment right now on the situation.
Colts GM Bill Polian said in a
statement, “We have no credible information at this time, and we
will not comment until we do.’’
Coach Tony Dungy also didn’t
have much to offer.
“My phone has been ringing,
too,” Dungy said. “I really don’t have any details. I
don’t know what ‘involved’ means. (I) probably
don’t have any more information than (the media has) right now.’’
Profootballtalk.com reminds us that
this isn’t the first time there has been a situation with Marvin
that runs contrary to his squeaky-clean, good-guy image.
In 2003, Harrison attacked a Jets
ball boy who was fielding pre-game punts from Jets P Matt Turk.
The Updated Story on Marvin Harrison
May 3, 2008
Details remain scant out of Philadelphia
following a shooting outside of Playmakers, Marvin Harrison's
establishment in North Philadelphia. The Indianapolis wide receiver
has been questioned by police as part of the investigation, but he is
not considered a suspect at this time.
Lieutenant Frank Vanore said the investigation
of Tuesday's shooting was continuing. Harrison has not been arrested
or charged.
"He was interviewed," Vanore said
yesterday. "Why he was interviewed, that is all part of the
investigation. No one is a suspect."
Harrison won't be commenting any time soon, but
his agent Tom Condon has issued stated that previous reports of
Harrison's involvement in the shooting were false.
"I've spoken with Marvin and I've spoken
with his attorney, and they say the reports are erroneous,"
Condon told ESPN. "Marvin was not involved in any shooting, and
he is not the subject of this investigation."
I'm not saying that agents, lawyers, and men
caught up in police investigations are always to be trusted, but in
this case it seems warranted.
This morning David Gambacorta and Ted Silary
reported on Philly.com that Harrison conceded to police that he had
been engaged in a fight and that he was the owner of the FN5.7
firearm in question.
The agent's claim in the Star report seems
at odds with a report in today's Philadelphia Daily News. The facts
that can be surmised from this report are:
Harrison is under investigation for a shooting
that took place this past Tuesday at 5:00 p.m. one block from a
garage and car detail shop owned by Harrison.
Six shots were fired, hitting an unidentified
32-year-old man--who had just had a fistfight with Harrison. The man
suffered a gunshot wound to the hand, while a 2-year old boy suffered
a cut under his eye from glass that showered him after a bullet
struck a car windshield.
The gunshot victim initially lied to police
about where he was shot. It turns out the man had been kicked out of
Harrison's bar two weeks earlier and had been feuding with him since.
Police retrieved from Harrison's garage and
detail shop a Belgian firearm, FN5.7 on Wednesday. Police described
the gun Harrison turned over to them as a high-powered weapon which
fires armor-piercing rounds. Harrison acknowledges being the owner of
the gun and ballistic tests confirm that five of the six shots fired
during the shooting came from Harrison's gun.
Police further report that a man contacted them
Friday night also claiming to have been shot by Harrison. Police have
not been able to find the man who made the telephone call.
Police say Harrison was questioned by police for
four hours accompanied by an attorney. He denies he shot anyone,
although he admits to the fistfight with the shooting victim.
UPDATE
The latest update in the Marvin
Harrison - related shooting case is that . . .
there isn't any update.
Although actually, this article
does offer more details about the incident. It's sounding less and
less likely that Marvin wasn't involved in the shooting, as he claims.
Little has changed since NFL star
Marvin Harrison was linked to a North Philadelphia shooting two weeks ago.
Harrison still has not been
charged with any wrongdoing, but national interest in the April 29
incident remains high.
That night, Harrison was involved
in a fistfight with a 32-year-old man on Thompson Street near 25th,
where Harrison owns a car-detail shop, police sources said.
When the fight was over, the
unidentified man - who had been kicked out of Harrison's bar,
Playmakers, two weeks earlier - was shot in the hand. A little boy
also suffered minor injuries when a stray bullet shattered a nearby
car windshield.
Investigators concluded that six
shell casings found at the scene had been fired by a Belgian firearm
that Harrison owns, the sources said.
While Harrison admitted to
detectives that he owned the gun and was involved in the fistfight
that night, he insisted that he had nothing to do with the shooting,
sources said.
The victim has refused to
cooperate with police and to identify the person who shot him.
Since then - while investigators
have struggled to find witnesses - the Indianapolis Colts wide
receiver and his handlers have maintained his innocence.
Harrison recently assured top
Colts brass, including head coach Tony Dungy and president Bill
Polian, that he was not involved in the shooting, according to a
story reported yesterday by the Indianapolis Star.
Colts owner Jim Irsay did not
respond to a Daily News interview request, but he seemed to strike a
careful tone with the Star. "At this point I'm keeping my
fingers crossed," Irsay told the paper. "We've done
everything we could do in our diligence to try to discern what
happened. He said he was not involved in that shooting and . . .
the authorities have said there
is nothing imminent."
Last week, crime-scene
investigators found, in a rowhouse on Thompson Street, three more
stray bullets that they believed were from the April 29 incident.
Results of ballistics tests are not yet known.
Internet sites have run wild with
rumors about the shooting.
One report suggested that
Harrison had been the target of a gangland hit supposedly tied to his
incarcerated father - despite the fact that Harrison's father has
been dead for years.
6ABC jock tells radio station
that shooting victim planned to whack Marvin Harrison, website reports
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
6ABC Sports Anchor Keith Russell
has reportedly supplied shocking and as yet wholly unsubstantiated
details to a Florida radio station about last week's shooting linked
to Indianapolis Colts and Roman Catholic football star Marvin
Harrison. Harrison is being investigated by Philadelphia police
following the April 29 shooting in which a gun he owns was used to
shoot a man who had just beaten him up, in the hand. According to
ProFootballTalk, Russell appeared with Jason Jackson on Miami's WQAM,
and said his sources tell him that the man who was shot had come to
carry out a gangland-style hit on Harrison. According to the website,
Russell said during the segment that the issue relates to Harrison's
father, who Russell told the radio station was incarcerated, and that
the supposed "hit" was related to something in which
Harrison's father was supposedly involved. However,
according to this 1999 article from the Sporting News, Harrison's
father died when he was 2. The as yet-unidentified 32-year-old
man was shot around Thompson Street near 25th in North Philadelphia
after a fight with Harrison, police sources have said. The fight may
have stemmed from the victim being kicked out of Playmakers, a bar
that Harrison owns, on 28th Street near Cambridge, a few weeks
earlier, the People Paper's David Gambacorta has reported. Efforts to
reach Russell have been unsuccessful. A 6ABC spokeswoman declined
comment but says it is looking into the matter.
October 9, 2008
Civil suit
filed against Colts' Harrison
Alleged victim in Philly
shooting seeks damages from receiver
By Mark Alesia and Mike Chappell
indystar.com
Indianapolis Colts receiver Marvin Harrison is
being sued by the alleged victim of an April shooting in Harrison's
hometown of Philadelphia.
Harrison has not been charged or called a
suspect in the April 29 incident which happened after he and the
alleged victim, Dwight Dixon, reportedly fought near an auto repair
shop Harrison owns.
Harrison has acknowledged owning the gun used in
the shooting but denies having anything to do with the incident,
police have said. Law enforcement officials told the Philadelphia
Daily News that shell casings found at the shooting scene had been
fired from a gun owned by Harrison, a Belgian-made FN5.7 firearm.
Dixon claims "serious and permanent
injuries to his arm, body, etc., and a severe shock to his nerves and
nervous system," according to the lawsuit. He is seeking more
than $50,000 in compensatory damages and more than $50,000 in
punitive damages.
Kenneth Rothweiler, a Philadelphia personal
injury lawyer not involved in the lawsuit, said the damages could be
much greater if the case goes to trial. The minimum damages, or
"amount in controversy," listed in the Harrison lawsuit is
meant to avoid mandatory arbitration for cases with less than $50,000
in damages.
The lawsuit was filed Sept. 2. Philadelphia
police would not comment Wednesday, except to say the investigation
is ongoing.
The lawsuit, a copy of which was obtained by The
Indianapolis Star, claims that Harrison, 36, "intentionally and
outrageously shot" Dixon, although another part of the document
says Dixon could have been shot by someone else using Harrison's gun.
Robert M. Gamburg, Dixon's attorney, did not
return messages from The Star.
"Look, it's our position that Marvin
Harrison was the shooter," Gamburg told the Daily News. "But
even if you believe the other theory, Marvin's gun was still used in
the shooting, so he was negligent for leaving the weapon where
someone else could obtain it."
Dixon is scheduled to appear in court Nov. 17 on
a charge of making a false report to police. After the incident,
Dixon initially told police he had been wounded while driving in
another part of the city. He later changed his story, identifying
Harrison as the shooter.
A Colts spokesman said Wednesday that the team
would have no comment on the lawsuit, and Harrison was not made
available to reporters. Harrison's agent, Tom Condon, did not return messages.
In his previously scheduled news conference at
the Colts complex, coach Tony Dungy said: "Really, from our
standpoint, there's nothing new, no new information that's come to us
in the last two months. There's really nothing to say and nothing
we're handling any differently until we hear something from the
authorities in Pennsylvania."
Asked if this would distract Harrison from his
football duties, Dungy said, "No, Marvin will be fine. I can't
speak for Marvin, but my sense is he'll be fine."
The Colts next play Sunday against Baltimore at
Lucas Oil Stadium.
An NFL spokesman had no comment directly on
Harrison, but generally speaking, he said the league's personal
conduct policy does not apply to civil matters.
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