Duquesne Player’s Condition Upgraded: The friends and family members of the victims of the Duquesne shootings received good news Sept. 22. Sam Ashaolu, a forward for the team and one of five players shot at a campus dance in the early morning hours of Sept. 17, was upgraded from critical to serious condition at Mercy Hospital in Pittsburgh.
Ashaolu, 23, took two bullets to the head and was the worst injured victim of the shootings. Fellow Dukes Stuard Baldonado, Aaron Jackson, Shawn James and Kojo Mensah were also shot outside a Black Student Union dance on the school’s campus. The severe swelling in Ashaolu’s head makes it too risky for doctors to remove the remaining bullet fragments left. Baldonado, shot in the back and left arm, remains hospitalized after having a bullet removed from a patch of muscle below the skin in his back. He is expected to be released within a few days.
William Holmes and Brandon Baynes, both 18 and of the Pittsburgh suburb Penn Hills, were arrested and charged in the shootings.
[9/25/06]
