MIAMI (AP) — Florida International University football player Kendall Berry was stabbed to death in an incident on the school’s main Miami campus late Thursday night, immediately sending shock and grief across the community and putting police on a search for multiple suspects.
Berry, 22, was stabbed around 9 p.m., said Miami-Dade police Det. Javier Baez. Police were interviewing “several people that observed the incident,” Baez said, though he could not confirm if any suspect was in custody.
“Our thoughts and prayers go out to Kendall’s family,” FIU President Mark B. Rosenberg said in a news release. “We are here to support them and our entire university community as all of us come to terms with this tragedy.”
FIU’s athletic department did not have further comment, and messages left for athletic director Pete Garcia and football coach Mario Cristobal were not immediately returned.
Shortly after the university confirmed Berry’s death, FIU indefinitely postponed football coaching clinics scheduled for Friday and Saturday.
The football team’s annual spring game is scheduled for Wednesday. It’s unknown if that would take place as planned.
Baez said the stabbing took place just outside the front doors of the campus recreation center, where he said the football team and other FIU athletes train.
Berry, from Haines City, Florida, was involved in an argument with one or more people, Baez said.
“One produced some type of a weapon and stabbed him,” Baez said.
Television images showed several students, including some identified as FIU athletes, hugging and crying later Thursday night near the spot where the stabbing took place. One student dropped to her knees in grief just inside the doorway, screaming.
Berry appeared in all 12 FIU games as a freshman in 2007. He sat out the 2008 season with a knee injury and then had some breakout moments in 2009, rushing for three touchdowns in a span of 13 minutes against Middle Tennessee on Nov. 7 and following that up with two more scores the following week in a win over North Texas.
Berry finished last season with a team-best seven touchdowns, despite not playing in the season’s first seven games because of continued recovery from the knee injury.
“When you put the football in his hands, that kid can do some unbelievable things,” Cristobal said late last season of Berry.
FIU officials said they did not recall another killing on the school’s campus.
Copyright 2010 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.