Sports: Men's basketball heads to Fort Wayne to take on the Mastodons.
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Wednesday, February 5, 2020 - Vol. 120 Issue 52
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Former Leatherneck wins Super Bowl By Devon Greene editor-in-chief
The Western Illinois University football program has added another alumni to the list of Super Bowl champions. Former Leatherneck, Khalen Saunders has become the eighth Leatherneck to win a Super Bowl. Saunders joins a prestigious list of Super Bowl champions that includes former Patriots Bryan Cox and Rodney Harrison, former Green Bay Packers Frank Winters and Don Beebe, former Denver Bronco Cyron Brown, former New York Giant Rich Seubert, former Pittsburgh Steeler Mike Wagner and former Tampa Bay Buccaneer Aaron Stecker. According to Athletics, Western Illinois has won 18 Super Bowls between former coaches and alumni. After the Chiefs' victory over the Tennessee Titans in the AFC Championship game, Saunders immediately set his sights on the task ahead, winning the Super Bowl. “Loved meeting Hunt’s trophy, but I’m trying to see that Lombardi now. Super Bowl
bound,” Saunders said on his social media. “Woke up feeling like I still got something to prove. We ain’t done.” The Kansas City Chiefs had a tall task ahead of them with the San Francisco 49ers ahead of them in Super Bowl 53 in Miami. It was a tumultuous game that saw the Chiefs trailing for the majority of the game before pulling off an improbable comeback to win 31-20. The win was the first Super Bowl victory for the Chiefs since 1970 when they defeated the Minnesota Vikings 23-7 in Louisiana. Saunders recorded one tackle in the game. “No matter what else happens in life… I’m going to die a champion,” Saunders tweeted along with two photos of him holding the Lombardi trophy on Twitter. Saunders sent another tweet on Monday expressing his thanks. “Just a kid from St Louis city… no excuse me, just a champion from St. Louis city,” Saunders said. “God thank you for your grace and blessings. And Bingo, thank you for guiding my steps.”
Khalen Saunders celebrates his Super Bowl victory.
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Police investigate skirmish on West Adams
By Devon Greene editor-in-chief
Macomb Police are investigating a brawl that resulted in a crowd of people nearly getting run over by a vehicle early Sunday Morning on West Adams Street. According to local Lyft driver, Steven Barnum, the incident occurred at around 4 a.m. on Sunday morning. Barnum has been driving for Lyft since September of 2019 and says he sees plenty of strange things around town but the altercation on Sunday was entirely new territory. “I see fights and reckless driving on a regular basis but I’ve never seen anything like this incident,” Barnum said. Barnum said he was driving to
pick up some passengers from Lincoln Hall and saw six people fighting across the street. He filmed the incident and caught the driver of the vehicle driving toward a group of people. “I tried to film it as I was waiting for people to get in my car, and then I saw this guy drive from down the street and build up momentum,” Barnum said. “Then he tried to hit people in the street and they kept dodging and getting out of the way.” Barnum said the driver tried two or three times to hit the group of people in the street and on the sidewalk. He also said that he wants to dispel the idea that the incident was just “kids fooling around.” “I think that it was a very blatant attempt to kill people,” Bar-
num said. “Anyone who drives a car toward a group of people not once, but several times is trying to do a little more than just scare them.” Barnum was not the only one to capture the event on video. There was also a video posted on YouTube that has gained more than 32,000 views. The owner of this video is Derek MccLeary who is also a Lyft driver in the area and was just across the street from Barnum. MccLeary’s video was significantly longer and captured a lot of the chaos that unfolded, including multiple attempts to hit people from the vehicle in question. In the video, the car was shown pulling out of the driveway in reverse, nearly hitting multiple pedestrians. The
car then starts to drive down the street, after a person jumped on the hood. According to MccLeary, the person who jumped on the hood of the car was screaming “I’ll kill all of y’all.” The car then turned around and tried to hit a cluster of pedestrians who were standing near the sidewalk on the street. The group of people were able to get out of the path of the car and avoided any injuries. The car then turned around and took another swipe at the people before the video was stopped. MccLeary then moved his vehicle to a safe location and waited for police to arrive at the scene. According to MccLeary, one police officer arrived at the scene and was outnumbered by what looked like 150 people at the res-
idence. He then said more police officers arrived four or five minutes later and started sending everyone on the scene home. MccLeary also said that he offered to his video to the officers on the scene in order to help apprehend anyone involved in the altercation but says the officer said, “We’re not worried about it, we just sent everyone home.” MccLeary then went home that night and uploaded the video to YouTube and after it gained notoriety, he was contacted by Macomb Police Lieutenant Lindsey May asking if he got a plate number.
Investigation page 2