By Kristin Bender, STAFF WRITER
OAKLAND — On the day Christopher Hollis appeared in court on charges of murder , UC Berkeley's head football coach confirmed that a group of his players was on the street and talking with the victim in the minutes before her shooting.
"A few of our student-athletes were there and witnessed it," Berkeley's head football coach, Jeff Tedford, said Tuesday. "They've been very cooperative all along with the situation. None of our players have been implicated in any wrongdoing. I want to reiterate that it is very sad and tragic, and we are doing everything that we can to be cooperative through the investigation." Tedford said Doxy, 18, a red-shirt freshman, lived in a College Avenue dormitory that held a dance the night of the shooting and was standing on the street with five to eight other players when the shooting occurred. Tedford said Doxy's injury was minor. Gray, 21, a red-shirt junior, also was present. He had been arrested last December on weapons charges stemming from a fight outside a San Francisco nightclub. Charges in the San Francisco case were never filed. Hollis is accused of shooting Willis-Starbuck a few blocks from the University of California, Berkeley campus in the early-morning hours of July 17. Police say Hollis' friend, Christopher Larry Wilson Jr., drove the getaway car. Wilson turned himself into police a few days after the slaying and is free on bail. He will be back in court next week.
Police say Hollis was on College Avenue that night at the request of Willis-Starbuck, who called him on her cell phone after an argument with a group of university men, who authorities now say are the football players. The men had reportedly used foul language against the group of women, calling them "bitches" at one point, friends of the victim said after the slaying. Police said the quarrel between the two groups appeared to be over when a car drove up and a man got out and sprayed the crowd with bullets. Willis-Starbuck, a 19-year-old sophomore at Dartmouth, was shot in the chest and died about 15 minutes later. Oakland attorney John Burris, who is representing Hollis, said he does not foresee criminal charges being filed against either Doxy or Gray. "But I am interested in the culpability of the football players because I think (the argument) sent a message..." he said. Tedford said he was "fully aware" of players' involvement in the shooting from the beginning. Their involvement wasn't revealed until this week, following Hollis' arrest and the Alameda County District Attorney's decision to file criminal charges against him. Police spokesman Joe Okies said investigators did not learn of a second victim until a few weeks after the slaying. Asked Tuesday why the Bears did not issue a statement about the players' involvement, Tedford said, "I was never asked a question about it, and the university was controlling the investigation or the media or whatever. ... It was in the university's hands."
Earlier this week, a university spokesman declined to comment on the issue of the football players. This is the third time since December that members of the nationally-ranked football team have tarnished the Bears squad. In March, Cal receiver Robert Jordan and a freshman teammate, defensive back Bernard Hicks, were suspended by Tedford for their arrests during a traffic stop in February. Hicks was charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession after Berkeley police found several bags of the drug in his car. Jordan was arrested for possession of a concealed weapon when police say they found a dagger hanging around his neck. He was never charged. On Tuesday, Hollis appeared briefly in Alameda County Superior Court for an arraignment. The proceedings were continued until Oct. 5, when he will return for a bail hearing and to enter a plea. He is being held at Santa Rita jail without bail. Wearing a red jailhouse garb over two T-shirts, Hollis smiled and laughed at the crowd of supporters and news reporters in the courtroom. He spoke in whispers with Burris and never addressed Judge Winifred Smith. Hollis was arrested in Fresno on Friday after eluding police for 21/2 months. Fresno police stopped him and his girlfriend late Thursday when the 33-year-old woman ran a stop sign. Both gave police false names, but when Hollis' fingerprints came back, officers found he was wanted for murder and tracked him to a Fresno apartment. Burris said Hollis was in shock and disbelief the past two months and "traumatized by the events that took place. ... Now I think he is resigned to the fact that there are criminal charges pending and he needs to face that."
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