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MTV To Doante To Mills Family, School

Link to Mills’ MySpace Page

By VALERIE KALFRIN and ANWAR S. RICHARDSON The Tampa Tribune

TAMPA - At a 10:30 a.m. press conference to update the investigation into who killed Cedric Mills, Tampa Police Maj. George McNamara said police are pouring through an enormous amount of information. They are working to compare rumors to witnesses and evidence.

Police were out at the house with a metal detector, sifting through the dirt.

“But we did not find the bullet,” he said. “Some detectives have worked 42 hours straight to the point of exhaustion. There is someone out there who knows what happened. This young man, as with many homicide victims, did not deserve this.”

Thursday, while crime-scene technicians sifted the dirt in his yard, Vidal Mills regretted not taking his son with him for a drive a day earlier.

The former Tampa Bay Buccaneer and his son, Cedric, known to all as C.J., had a special bond.

At 17, C.J. was a standout linebacker at Jefferson High School who dreamed of playing in the National Football League like his father. Mills urged his son to lift weights, offered encouragement, and he even helped him confront someone who troubled him.

Wednesday, just before 6:25 p.m., Vidal Mills drove away from their home in the Carver City neighborhood. A phone call prompted his return.

C.J. had been shot in the driveway. He was pronounced dead at St. Joseph’s Hospital.

Before paramedics transported C.J., Mills managed to hold his dying son, who told his father repeatedly that he loved him.

“It was the weakest I had ever felt,” Mills said Thursday. “I was always there for my son, but this was the one time I couldn’t do anything for him.”

As of late Thursday night, Tampa police were searching for a light-green or gray newer-model Chrysler involved in the shooting, as well as two men. Thursday, homicide detectives continued to interview neighbors, relatives and friends, as well as sift through rumors, to determine what triggered the shooting.

“Detectives are entertaining every story,” police spokeswoman Andrea Davis said. “There’s nothing right now they can rule out.”

Many Tales Describe Stereo Dispute

C.J. was shot outside his house at 4219 W. Laurel St., near the 1990 Chevrolet his grandmother said he started driving months ago.

He would cruise through the neighborhood, blowing the horn and waving at everyone he knew, said Davone Terry, 23, standing down the street from the house Thursday.

“He throw that fist up; everything be OK,” added Marc Strode, 17.

In the fall, a young man from the neighborhood had stolen stereo equipment from C.J.’s car, said Lee Meitzler, one of C.J.’s coaches. C.J. and his father had confronted this person - whose identity the coach did not know - and gotten it back.

Meitzler said he and other players thought the dispute was over.

“This kid got into it with C.J. a couple weeks ago, kind of a ‘Your dad’s not around’ kind of thing. C.J. got the best of him, and the kid said it wasn’t over,” Meitzler said.

Meitzler and others heard C.J. had beaten the young man.

“C.J. confronted the boy and knocked the three front teeth out of his mouth,” said Veronica Bonner, 16, a close friend.

Samuel Green, 17, another Jefferson player and a neighbor, said he didn’t know this person by name, but he and C.J. had seen the young man on Sunday, sitting on a bench outside T&S Grocery, about a block from the Mills home.

He kept eying them, Green said. “He was looking disturbed,” he said.

Isaac Anderson, 24, said that on Wednesday he noticed a new car - the light-colored Chrysler - on West Laurel Street. “It rolled past about three or four times,” Anderson said. He saw a man with dreadlocks driving and another man with a red bandanna on his face leaning back in the passenger seat.

At 6:25 p.m., Ebony Green, 18, who is Samuel Green’s sister, returned home from a part-time job at Anderson Elementary School and also noticed the Chrysler, sitting at the stop sign at West Laurel and North Hubert Avenue.

Within moments, it rolled to the Mills home, where C.J. had gotten out of his car. Two men approached him, Green said.

‘Pop! Pop! Pop!’

“I seen the fear just come over him, and he threw up his hands,” she said. “I’m like, Lord, what’s going on? I seen the boys with bandannas on their faces pull out that chrome gun. Pop! Pop! Pop!”

C.J. collapsed. His stepsister ran outside screaming, trying to call 911. Green also dialed 911.

A friend pressed a towel against the wounds. Green told him to stay still. “My body’s on fire. I can’t feel my legs,” she said he told her.

Tampa police said the 911 call came in at 6:25 p.m. Eight officers were dispatched. Tampa Fire Rescue was dispatched at 6:29 p.m., records show.

Paramedics arrived at West Spruce Street and North Manhattan Avenue, roughly three blocks away, at 6:32 p.m. They waited there until receiving a signal from police that the scene was safe, Tampa Fire Rescue Capt. Jace Kohan said.

This is a common safety precaution at shootings and other violent scenes, police and fire officials said.

Two officers from a street anticrime squad arrived at the Mills house at 6:33 p.m. in plainclothes and in an unmarked car.

Trained as first-responders, they focused on administering first aid to Mills, Davis said.

Their uniformed supervisor, Sgt. Michelle Hawthorne, arrived at 6:36 p.m. and signaled paramedics to arrive. Hawthorne had been eastbound on West Columbus Drive near North Habana Avenue when dispatched and had difficulty fighting traffic, Davis said.

Rescuers transported C.J. to St. Joseph’s Hospital at 6:52 p.m.

Jefferson junior quarterback Zach Grossi said he was supposed to meet Mills that evening. “I texted him, and he didn’t answer. I called him, and he didn’t answer,” Grossi said.

Then a teammate’s cousin relayed that C.J. had been shot. “Our first reaction was, ‘No way.’ We didn’t believe it,” Grossi said.

Death Shocks School
Mills’ death shocked and befuddled Jefferson High, where the school district sent 10 counselors to speak to several hundred students throughout the day. The counselors will return today and also next week if needed, officials said.

Bonner said her mother let her sign out early because it was too painful to be in class. “The only thing you heard was footsteps and cries. It was so sad,” she said.

Since C.J. was 7 years old, he has thrown a football and talked about playing in the big leagues, said his grandmother, Lucy Mills, 55.

C.J. was one of four sons, two daughters and two stepdaughters in Vidal Mills’ family, she said. They were extremely close.

Numb, Hurting
“Right now I’m numb and kind of hurting,” Lucy Mills said Thursday. “He called me every day just to see how I was doing and tell me how much he loved me.”

The only public record of trouble for C.J. is a 2005 misdemeanor arrest for battery. The case’s disposition is not available.

Ebony Green remembered when C.J. moved into the neighborhood about four years ago and that he was scrawny. His father urged him to lift weights in the yard.

“C.J., come on, one more,” Green could hear him say.

C.J. attended church nearly every Sunday, his grandmother said. He was “very independent.”

He didn’t like to rely on his father for money and worked a series of jobs at a pet shop, a Wendy’s restaurant, a carwash, even a Renaissance festival.

Many students left notes at a shrine erected in the school lunch area with Mills’ jersey.

Mills was an honorable mention on the Class 4A All-State Football Team last season. Wednesday, he had just completed a voluntary off-season workout at Jefferson to prepare for Tuesday’s start of spring football practice before heading home.

“When he strapped a helmet on, he was for real,” Jefferson head football Coach Mike Fenton said.

“There is no doubt in my mind he would have become maybe one of the biggest recruits this county has ever seen by the time his senior year came around,” he said.

“He would have been a Division I player. He probably would have played for Miami and maybe the NFL one day. He was that good,” he said.

Thursday, his teammates gathered under a large tent at the school, sharing memories.

Mills’ family and Brian Holloway, a former NFL player whose son Max is on the team, offered comforting words.

“If we cry together, it will help us heal faster. We will heal together,” said Jefferson junior linebacker Gorby Loreus.

C.J. had inspired them, the players said, but they knew who his inspiration was.

“He wanted to be like his daddy,” Samuel Green said. “Only better.”

News Channel 8 reporter Samara Sodos and Tribune reporter Natasha Del Toro contributed to this report. Reporter Valerie Kalfrin can be reached at (813) 259-7800. Reporter Anwar S. Richardson can be reached at (813) 259-8425.

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