Jason Hargrove, 28, of Louisville, Kentucky has been charged in the shooting death of his best friend, 29-year-old Michael Jenkins, also of Louisville, after the two got into an argument over which school has the superior men’s college basketball program, the University of Kentucky or the University of Louisville.
Apparently the shooting was not over the actual teams, though, but over annoyance at Jenkins’ use of bad grammar during their Facebook chat.
According to Michelle Baker, girlfriend of the accused Hargrove, the argument started when Hargrove, a Louisville Cardinals sports fan, and Jenkins, a loyal University of Kentucky fan, began chatting on Facebook about which of the two teams would win the NCAA men’s basketball tournament this season.
Baker told Louisville Metro Police Department detectives that the conversation had been going on for over an hour, when Hargrove abruptly smashed a full bottle of beer over his computer, and began yelling wildly, which startled her while in another room. Baker says when she entered the room to ask what was wrong, Hargrove was ‘going wild.’
“Jason said to me, [Jenkins] is a stupid, worthless, piece of shit UK fan! I’m sick of reading his nonsensical dribble! I don’t even know how we have been friends for so long! When a guy doesn’t even know the difference between their, there, and they’re, then that illiterate son of a bitch should be killed!” Baker said in her statement to police.
According to a LMPD spokesperson, the two began to make threats against one another, at which point Hargrove loaded his gun and walked next door, where Jenkins lived, and shot him at a point-blank range four times. He then took a red Sharpie marker and wrote, ‘Go Cards!’ on the dying mans forehead. No one else was in Jenkins’ trailer at the time.
Both University of Kentucky head coach, John Calipari, and University of Louisville coach, Rick Pitino, were asked about the incident, and both coaches commented on how the fans take the rivalry way too seriously.
“Coaching college basketball is my career, it is all I know and I can still sleep at night knowing it is just a game,” Pitino said. “College basketball fans in the state of Kentucky get ridiculous. I wish I could say this shocks me but it absolutely does not. Things like this are another reason I think social media is senseless – the world is full of idiots, they say things they don’t mean or have any knowledge about, and besides that, you can’t believe anything you read on the internet.”
“The fans around here are crazy. I’m sure the guy will claim temporary insanity, and it will probably hold up in court because people in this state are all insane during basketball season,” Calipari said. “That’s the reason why our program puts so much effort into funding the basketball program, and we go after the best players money can buy. Our lives may very well depend on it.”