Brian Blades, Brother Share Sorrows, Too Shooting Remains A Puzzle After Police Say They Responded To An Earlier Call
Brian and Bennie Blades have always been about as close as brothers could be.
Born a year apart, they played football together at the University of Miami, leaving the same year to join the NFL, Brian with the Seattle Seahawks, Bennie with the Detroit Lions.
Together, they bought their parents a new home. Then they got themselves off-season homes on the same street in a separate area outside Fort Lauderdale.
That they are sharing the same tragedy should not come as much of a surprise.
Police say Bennie Blades was not in Brian’s home when cousin Charles Blades, 34, was shot to death there Wednesday, but he was on the scene in the moments afterward, holding down his hysterical, grief-stricken older brother. And detectives are trying to determine if there’s any link to an earlier incident at Bennie Blades’ townhouse.
A police report released Friday showed that an officer was called an hour before the shooting to Bennie Blades’ home, which is about 50 yards from his brother’s in this well-manicured, golf-and-tennis community.
At 11:40 p.m. Tuesday, police were called to Bennie’s home by the mother of his daughter, who claimed custody of her child on that day and didn’t want Bennie to take their 3-year-old to Disney World the next morning.
At 11:45 p.m., an officer arrived and talked with the mother, Carol Jamerson, outside the home. He called Bennie Blades, who insisted he had custody of the girl. Bennie said he’d be there in an hour.
At 12:11 a.m., convinced the problem was resolved, the officer left.
“Carol told me she wanted to speak with Mr. Blades when he arrives home and she would wait for him off of his property,” the officer wrote in his report.
At 12:38 a.m., Brian Blades called 911, saying his cousin had been shot in the head.
Because of the timing and the proximity of the two homes, it’s possible the two events were connected.
During the first of two 911 calls from his townhouse, Brian Blades seems to say, “I went down there to stop my brother from a fight with this girl. And this gun went off and shot my cousin.” A couple words are unclear in the frantic plea for help. “A fight with this girl” could be “finding this girl.”
Question is, who is she?
Was it Jamerson, 29, who could have met Bennie Blades about the time Charles was shot if Bennie indeed arrived on schedule?
Reached Friday at her home in Miami, Jamerson declined comment “on anything.”
Police, who aren’t convinced that Jamerson is “the girl” in question, say they’re stumped.
“The only woman in the area before the call was the ex-girlfriend of Bennie,” said Sgt. Mike Price of the Plantation Police Department. “She may still have been in the area” at the time of the shooting.
A woman was not only nearby but in the house, according to Scott Charanian, 24, who lives directly underneath Brian Blades’ townhouse. He told The Times Friday that he heard men wrestling, then “a boom” that sounded like a gunshot, then the distinct scream of a woman.
She screamed for five minutes inside the home, Charanian said, then continued for another 10 minutes outside on the street. He also said he heard a man wailing.
Police have been led to believe through interviews that the only people in the townhouse were Brian, Charles and two male friends.
Of Jamerson, Price said, “No one said she was in the house.”
Brian Blades, 29, isn’t helping clear up the matter. His agent, Drew Rosenhaus, said last night that Blades’ mental condition hasn’t improved much and that he hasn’t been able to give his family, much less police, details of the incident.
Police believe the .380-caliber semi-automatic handgun belonged to Brian Blades and that he and Charles argued just before Charles’ death.
Blades could be subpoenaed, but authorities are probably not going to do that at this point, Price said.
Rosenhaus, meanwhile, said the Seahawks have told Blades he “can take as much time as he needs to get it together.”
Asked how long that might be, he said, “That’s impossible to know.”