Four people have been arrested in connection to the shooting of Florida State linebacker Ethan Pritchard, Florida Department of Law Enforcement (FDLE) Commissioner Mark Glass said Wednesday.
Glass said Pritchard was “not doing anything wrong” when he was ambushed outside an apartment last month. He added that Pritchard was dropping off family members, an aunt and a child, when he was shot in the back of the head.
Pritchard, a six-foot-two, 224-pound freshman from Sanford, remains in critical but stable condition at Tallahassee Memorial Hospital. He was shot August 31 while inside a vehicle outside apartments in Havana, according to the Gadsden County Sheriff’s Office.
Gadsden County Sheriff Morris Young said authorities believe Pritchard’s shooting was a case of mistaken identity.
Jayden Bodison, Caron Miller, Germany Atkins and an unnamed minor have been arrested in connection with the shooting, the FDLE said. Bodison, Miller and the juvenile were charged with three counts of attempted murder and one count of shooting into an occupied vehicle. Atkins was charged with one count of probation violation. It was not immediately clear if any of the accused had attorneys.
Pritchard did not play in Florida State’s season opener, a 31-17 victory Saturday over No. 8 Alabama in Tallahassee on August 30.
“I recruited him for years, got a chance to watch him grow,” FSU coach Mike Norvell said Saturday. “The way that he plays the game, it’s a passion, energy. He loves it, absolutely loves it.
“To know that right now that’s taken away from him in a senseless act … you don’t always know why you have to go through things in life. You don’t understand the reasoning. But I do believe that God has his hand over Ethan and this football team and just all the relationships.”
Ethan’s father, Earl, attended Florida State’s win over East Texas A&M on Saturday. He was on the sideline and in the locker room afterward.
“He’s a wonderful man,” Norvell said. “And being with him, I know it’s so very hard for anybody to have to go through. … But he told me earlier this week, ‘I know where my boy wants to be, so I’m going to go stand in his place for him.’”
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