QB At Florida College Charged With Attempted Murder

POSTED: 5:30 am EDT April 10, 2008
UPDATED: 8:34 am EDT April 10, 2008


DAYTONA BEACH, Fla. -- A Bethune-Cookman University football player was charged with attempted felony murder after he pulled a shotgun on a man who owed him money, authorities said Wednesday.

Brandon Wright, a back-up quarterback and running back on the Wildcats, was being held in the Volusia County Branch Jail on several charges including trafficking cocaine within 1000 feet of a school, home invasion robbery and false imprisonment, a jail official said. Some of those charges do not have bonds.

Wright was arrested Monday at his dorm room where police discovered cocaine, marijuana, and the shotgun used in the attempted murder, Daytona Beach police chief Mike Chitwood told The Daytona Beach News-Journal.

"He had no record." Chitwood said. "He was very honest and forthright. He came right out and said I did it."

Police said Wright was dealing drugs to make ends meet.

"I am shocked and disappointed if this is true," the school's football head coach Alvin Wyatt said in the statement. "At no time did this student give us any indication of the charge of which he is accused."

The school's athletic department dismissed Wright from the football team on March 15 for failure to fulfill team obligations, including attending mandatory meetings and workouts, the statement said.

He has also been indefinitely suspended from Bethune-Cookman, the statement said.

The Daytona Beach Police and Bethune-Cookman security declined to give information on the arrest after hours Wednesday.

The jail didn't have a record of Wright's attorney.

Wright went to DeLand High School where he was quarterback until his graduation in 2004. He signed with the Naval Academy in 2005 and played in 2006 but never made the varsity team. He transferred to Bethune-Cookman for the 2007 season, where he was the third-string quarterback.