Jovan Belcher was one sick son of B****

[ShowtimeSBMVP]

Exclusive: As troubles at home simmered, Chiefs tried to help Jovan Belcher
Police said the team was providing counseling to Jovan Belcher and his girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins. But Belcher, before taking his own life in the parking lot of the Chiefs’ practice facility, said it wasn’t enough to fix their problems.
By CHRISTINE VENDEL
The Kansas City Star




Seconds after fatally shooting his longtime girlfriend, Kansas City Chiefs linebacker Jovan Belcher leaned over her in their master bathroom, said he was sorry and kissed her on the forehead.

His mother, who heard gunfire as she stood in the kitchen, rushed to her son’s bedroom and watched his remorseful goodbye.

Belcher apologized to his mother, kissed his 3-month-old daughter and fled his rented home in the 5400 block of Crysler Avenue in his Bentley.

The Star learned those details and others from multiple police sources Monday as officers continued their investigation into why Belcher, 25, killed his live-in girlfriend, Kasandra Perkins, 22, on Saturday morning. Arguments over relationship and financial issues had simmered for months between them, according to the sources.

Belcher’s mother, who came from New York to live with her son so the couple could work through their issues, didn’t hear much of the argument. But just before 8 a.m., she heard her son say something to the effect of: “You can’t talk to me like that!”

Then she heard gunfire.

Afterward, Belcher drove to the only place he felt safe — to his other family at Arrowhead Stadium, police said.

As he covered the five miles from his home to the stadium, his violent act weighed on him, police believe.

“He probably realized he had done something and he couldn’t go back,” said Police Sgt. Richard Sharp.

In the parking lot of the practice facility at 1 Arrowhead Drive, Belcher encountered Chiefs General Manager Scott Pioli. Belcher stepped out of his Bentley with a gun pointed at his own head, police said.

“I did it,” he said, according to police. “I killed her.”

Club officials knew about the couple’s problems. The Chiefs had provided counseling and “were bending over backward” to help, Sharp said.

But Belcher told Pioli that the assistance wasn’t enough to fix their problems and now, “It was too late.”

When another Chiefs employee arrived, Pioli told him to stay back. Meanwhile Pioli tried to persuade Belcher to lay down the weapon, Sharp said.

Belcher thanked Pioli for everything he had done for him. He asked if he and Clark Hunt would take care of his daughter.

Chiefs Head Coach Romeo Crennel and linebackers coach Gary Gibbs arrived in the parking lot and Belcher reportedly announced, “Guys, I have to do this.”

Crennel tried to dissuade him.

“I was trying to get him to understand that life is not over,” Crennel told The Star. “He still has a chance and let’s get this worked out.’’

As Pioli and Crennel tried to reason with Belcher, the men heard police sirens closing in. Belcher then walked a few steps away with the gun still pointed at his head.

“I got to go,” Belcher reportedly said. “I can’t be here.”

Belcher knelt behind a vehicle and made the sign of the cross across his chest before firing a single bullet into his head.

Kansas City police believe Belcher killed himself because he was distraught over what he had done to Perkins.

“He cared about her,” Sharp said. “I don’t think he could live with himself.”

The night before the killings, Perkins had attended a concert downtown with friends, and Belcher had “partied” at the Power and Light District, police said. It was unclear when they arrived home, where Belcher’s mother was watching their baby. A woman who answered Belcher’s mother’s cell phone Monday declined to comment.

Detectives don’t know what specifically sparked the argument between the couple at home, but a friend of Perkins told The Star that the couple argued around 1 a.m. Saturday when Perkins returned home from the Trey Songz concert and drinks with friends afterward. Belcher was mad she had stayed out so late, the friend said.

Sometime later, Kansas City police talked with Belcher after finding him asleep in his Bentley on Armour Boulevard. Officers determined he was able to drive himself home. Police believe he arrived home about 7 a.m., well before a 9:30 team meeting. That’s when the yelling began.

Police said youth, immaturity and financial pressures served as a backdrop. During his college years, Belcher allegedly punched a dormitory window because he was upset over a woman.

Autopsies with toxicology tests were performed on both bodies, but results will take weeks, police said. Investigators believe alcohol may have played a role in the argument’s escalation.

Police recovered several legally owned guns from Belcher’s home. Investigators were testing each one, and the gun found with Belcher’s body, against shell casings and bullets they recovered.

Police spokesman Darin Snapp said Monday that Belcher’s mother, who had been staying with the couple, was given temporary custody of the couple’s daughter. But he said it was unclear if the grandmother and baby were still in the Kansas City area.

Perkins, who grew up in Texas, met Belcher, who grew up in New York, through a cousin, Whitney Golden Charles, the wife of Chiefs running back Jamaal Charles. Perkins moved to Kansas City in 2010 to be with Belcher. Her relatives learned of her death from the news, police said. A woman who answered the phone at a relative’s home Monday declined to comment.

Monday afternoon, the family issued a statement that spelled Perkins’ first name with a double s, though she spelled it with one on her Facebook page:

“On behalf of the Perkins Family, we appreciate the outpouring of love and concern for our Kassandra ‘Kasi’ Perkins. Our hearts are truly broken for Kasi was a beloved daughter, granddaughter, sister, mother, cousin and friend.…

“Please keep us in your hearts and prayers as well as the Belcher family for two lives were loss. Again we thank you for your support, our wish is for Kasi to be remembered for the love she shared with us all. Kasi will be truly missed!”

Jamaal Charles also released a statement: “Our family has suffered a personal tragic loss.… As this is a very tough time for our family, I ask that we are respected as we grieve. Kassandra was not only family, but a friend and a loving mother. As my actual family and my Kansas City Chiefs family have been altered forever, we ask that you keep us and most importantly their child in prayer. Thank you all for your continued support.”

Later Monday, Belcher’s somber relatives provided statements outside of Belcher’s boyhood home in New York. Yamiesse Lawrence, a cousin of Belcher’s, said the weekend’s events were an “inconceivable tragedy.”

“As a family, no words can express the sorrow we feel over the loss of Jovan and Kasandra,” Lawrence read aloud.

Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/2012/12/04...#storylink=cpy

[ForeverChiefs58]

Here is a good article from 2009 talking about these same issues with a former Chief.


Warren Moon Hopes Current NFL Players Don't Repeat His Mistakes

During much of his 23-year Hall of Fame career as a quarterback in the Canadian Football League and the NFL, Warren Moon kept his inner turmoil simmering beneath a poised, polished exterior.

As a trailblazing African-American quarterback, he tackled racism and stereotyping to hone a wildly successful playing career. But Moon never shook the psychological burden of becoming man of his household at age seven when his father died of liver disease, and forever feeling he had to financially provide for a huge family that included his mother, six sisters and other relatives.

Ultimately, Moon's personal demons wouldn't hide forever. As his playing career wound down, years of pent-up pressure, stress, frustration and anger led the popular NFL star to make news off the field -- embarrassing, troubling arrests for domestic violence and DUI that led him to undergo years of therapy and renewed accountability to his family, friends and those who idolize him.



"There is a lot on your plate for professional athletes -- the pressure to perform, to provide for your family, friends, everyone -- that a lot that people don't really know,'' said Moon, 52, who talks about his life, career and his myriad personal mistakes in a new book, Never Give Up on Your Dream: My Journey, co-written with Don Yaeger. "Eventually, if you're not careful or not aware of what's happening, it can come out and destroy you."

Moon told FanHouse he hopes his personal tale of the pitfalls that often accompany athletic success can serve a cautionary tale for young NFL players. And there are plenty of guys who can use this life lesson.

Thursday, former NFL running back Travis Henry was sentenced to three years in prison for his role in a cocaine trafficking ring. And how's this for a damning character trait -- Henry also is universally reviled for his admission that he can't afford child support for the 11 kids he has fathered with 10 different women.

On Monday, former Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who remains under indefinite suspension by the NFL, will begin life as a free man when his two months of home confinement ends. Vick served 19 months in federal prison after being convicted of financing a dogfighting operation.

"Doing time in the pen" isn't part of the NFL experience, but off-field mayhem often is. From Donte' Stallworth's guilty plea to DUI manslaughter after striking and killing a Miami pedestrian with his Bentley, to Plaxico Burress' gun charges, to soon-to-be-inducted Hall of Famer Bruce Smith's DUI conviction last month, these incidents assume their sorry place in what's become an NFL Hall of Shame.

"There are plenty of young guys that I'd like to grab around the collar and shake some sense into them,'' Moon said. "A lot of those guys are going through probably the same stuff I was, at that time.

"I probably wish someone would have shook me."

As a player, Moon largely maintained a stoic demeanor on the field and a quiet life off of it. He was respected as a model athlete, husband and father, and revered as a role model.

That sterling reputation quickly unraveled one awful night in 1995, when Moon and his wife, Felicia, were involved in a widely publicized domestic violence incident at their Texas home.

Although acquitted by a jury of charges that he punched, scratched and choked his wife in a physical dispute over credit cards, and despite Felicia's controversial pleas that prosecutors abandon the case before it went to trial, the Moon family remains haunted by that incident.

"My wife and I had our squabble; that's the biggest negative of my career, personally,'' Moon said. "We dealt with that as well as we possibly could, and I made sure I took steps to make sure nothing like that ever happens again. She did the same thing, because we were both fault. It was just a very public situation because of who we were at the time."

Later, two 2007 DUI stops in Washington that led to admissions of guilt in court, but reduced sentences for negligent driving, would tarnish his image further.

"I went to dinner and had a few drinks. I made a mistake but I thought everything was overblown,'' said Moon, who still believes the DUI charges were unwarranted since he tested under the limit in the first stop and was arrested for refusing field sobriety and breathalyzer tests in the other.

Still, Moon knows his fans and the public will not forget, nor will many forgive, these personal blemishes.

"Once you're in the news for something like that, it's hard to erase,'' Moon admitted.

Former eight-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Cris Carter knows all about demons. He battled alcohol and cocaine addictions that nearly derailed his 16-year NFL career, but he resurrected his life and image to win the Walter Payton Man of the Year award in 1999 and a spot on the NFL's 1990's All-Decade Team.

During the 2009 NFL Rookie Symposium earlier this month, Carter tore into the incoming class of NFL stars after one of them -- still unnamed -- fell asleep during his fiery speech about the challenges they face trying to earn a living "in a grown man's league."

Carter recalled seeing Burress, Vick, Ryan Leaf (indicted in May on one count of burglary and eight drug-related counts associated with the narcotic painkiller hyrocodone) and Adam "Pacman" Jones (trouble ad nauseum) in the audience at his previous "avoid the pitfalls" lectures to rookies.

"Every one of 'em said, 'You know something, Cris? It ain't gonna be me,' '' Carter recounted.

Moon hopes that Carter's powerful words got through to these incoming NFL players, and he wants his message to do the same.

He offers some simple advice to the younger, wealthier breed of NFL stars as these players negotiate their way through challenging playing careers and equally challenging personal choices.

"Watch the people who are around you and the people you associate with and hang out with,'' Moon cautioned. "A lot of times these are the guys you grew up with, that you don't want to turn your back on. But those guys aren't going in the same direction as you.

"These young players, these guys, really need to pay attention who they associate with and where they associate, the places they hang out. If they eliminate those two things, for the most part, they're gonna be OK."

[ChiefsCountry]

Damn this thread has gone crazy and the stupid **** hasn't even posted in it yet.

[memyselfI]

Sad, if police had hauled his ass in like they do REGULAR FOLKS they find drunk sleeping in their cars then maybe this entire situation would have ended differently. They need to stop giving celebs breaks because it only enables their problems to escalate.

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by Cassel's Reckoning

This guy's personal life honestly sounds WORSE than Larry Johnson's.

I hate to bring football into this but this is a black, black mark on Pioli's ledger.

There's no way this kind of person should have been playing football for the CHIEFS of all teams.

The Hunt family doesn't tolerate people like Belcher.

And you think other teams don't have this problem? I guarantee most NFL teams have at least 1 guy who is struggling with something.

And what exactly was Belcher's problem before this incident?

He didn't beat her, that we know of. She seemed very happy with him.

So you're telling us the Chiefs should have cut Belcher months ago because he had problems with his gf and they could have broken up permanently?

C'mon man. That is assinine.

[Hammock Parties]

Originally Posted by RunKC

So you're telling us the Chiefs should have cut Belcher months ago because he had problems with his gf and they could have broken up permanently?

They should have cut Belcher months ago because was an alcoholic thug.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by ChiefsCountry

Damn this thread has gone crazy and the stupid **** hasn't even posted in it yet.

i blame you. you awoke her

[RunKC]

Originally Posted by Cassel's Reckoning

They should have cut Belcher months ago because was an alcoholic thug.

And how did he show that he was a thug before recent events?

[ForeverChiefs58]

Originally Posted by Cassel's Reckoning

They should have cut Belcher months ago because was an alcoholic thug.

I wish they would have just cut him for not being able to play better.

This is a passing league, and that was his weaker game.

[el borracho]

Whenever I have financial troubles I like to cruise in my Bentley.

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by memyselfI

Sad, if police had hauled his ass in like they do REGULAR FOLKS they find drunk sleeping in their cars then maybe this entire situation would have ended differently. They need to stop giving celebs breaks because it only enables their problems to escalate.

So it was the fans fault, now it's the cops fault. Got it.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by el borracho

Whenever I have financial troubles I like to cruise in my Bentley.

who said he had financial problems?


she was failing classes he paid for. she quit her job.


maybe he wasnt ok with the way she spent his money

[BIG_DADDY]

Originally Posted by el borracho

Whenever I have financial troubles I like to cruise in my Bentley.

If they were worried about financial problems they both should have been back home with their new born eating healthy and watching video tape figuring out how to be a better player before calling it an early evening.

Alchohol, unhealthy codependent relationship. control issues and stress = disaster.

[loochy]

Originally Posted by JASONSAUTO

who said he had financial problems?


she was failing classes he paid for. she quit her job.


maybe he wasnt ok with the way she spent his money

I know! I mean if that isn't just asking for murder, then what is?

[KCWolfman]

Originally Posted by Cassel's Reckoning

No. Larry Johnson was really the only dick.

This organization has always tried to be about class.

Now, who knows? Our POS GM swept tons of dirt on Belcher under the rug. Who else on the roster is a colossal POS?

You have such a hard on for Pioli you can't see the situation logically.

[SAUTO]

Originally Posted by loochy

I know! I mean if that isn't just asking for murder, then what is?

who has said that?


man you guys are ****ing crazy lately.

just trying to say that is maybe they were having financial counseling