Buffalo Bills defensive tackle Marcell Dareus has been excused to be with his family after his younger brother was one of three people shot and killed in a suburb of Birmingham, Ala., last weekend.
Coach Chan Gailey, while expressing his condolences to Dareus and his family, added that Dareus plans to return in time to play in Buffalo’s home-opener against the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday.
Dareus’ younger brother, Simeon Gilmore, was one of three people shot and killed during a burglary in Pelham, Ala., on Sunday. Authorities said 20-year-old Jon Staggs Jr. has been charged with capital murder and burglary.
Police have not released a possible motive.
Dareus, Buffalo’s 2011 first-round draft pick out of Alabama, traveled home earlier this week to be with his family.
Gilmore and two other young men were gunned down in a home in a Pelham community. Joshua Smith, 22, of Pelham and Casey Cumberland, 22, of Helena also died in that shooting.
Gilmore struggled with a learning disability and wanted to be accepted by his peers. That longing for acceptance might have been Gilmore’s undoing, Woods said today.
“He was trying to find himself,” Pearson Woods, he oldest of Dareus’ five brothers, said. “Sometimes, when you’re young and finding yourself, you find yourself associated with people you shouldn’t be associated with.”
For a while, Gilmore lived in California with Woods but returned to Alabama about a year ago. Woods said Gilmore was living with his girlfriend at the time of his death.
In 2011, identifying himself as Simeon Dareus, Gilmone to the Birmingham News he was asking the Church of the Highlands’ Woodlawn-based Dream Center for help. Gilmore said then that he had difficulty reading and had little to live for. “I hope they show me a better route. I got nothing but bad.”
