From today's decision by Judge Scott Googler (N.D. Ala.) in Spears v. New York Times Co. (for more on the earlier correction in the case, see here):
On the night of January 14, 2023, Spears and his two high school friends, Dylan Serafini and Esai Morse, went to the popular student gathering area called "The Strip" located on University Boulevard in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, following the Alabama-LSU basketball game. At the time, Spears was a freshman at The University of Alabama and played guard on the Alabama basketball team. At 12:30 a.m., Spears and his friends met up outside of Houndstooth Bar with one of Spears's teammates, Brandon Miller, and were also joined at some point by the team's student manager, Cooper Lee. After meeting up, they drove to Moe's Original BBQ in downtown Tuscaloosa where they stayed until 1:40 a.m. While at Moe's BBQ, Spears FaceTimed another teammate, Jaden Bradley, who invited Spears and his friends to join Bradley and others.
After declining the invitation to go out, Spears and his friends drove back to his dorm room while Miller and Lee drove to The Strip in Miller's car. At 1:48 a.m., Spears FaceTimed Bradley again to see where they had gone, which is when Spears learned that there had just been a shooting on The Strip and bullets had struck Miller's windshield. Later that day, Tuscaloosa police investigated the incident and interviewed members of the basketball team who were out the night before, including Spears. Police ultimately charged two men in relation to the shooting. No one else, including Spears, was charged.
In its investigation of the incident, The Times learned that surveillance video showed two people "were struck by bullets in the crossfire," and that a "detective also made note of an unidentified passenger in Miller's car." In March, a confidential source "familiar with the case" purportedly told The Times that Spears was the unidentified passenger in Miller's car at the time of the shooting.
