Harvey Police Probe Murders Of Youth Football Coaches
UPDATED: 4/21/2011 4:23 p.m.
HARVEY, Ill. (WBBM/CBS) -- Harvey Police are investigating the deaths of two men who were shot in the home they shared.
As WBBM Newsradio 780's Steve Miller reports, both men were active in a youth football league in the south suburbs.
LISTEN: Newsradio 780's Steve Miller reports
Podcast
One of the men, Frank Brassel, 50, was a coach of 13- and 14-year-olds on the Harvey Colts. The other, Echford Cooper, 45, was an assistant.
Harvey Spokeswoman Sandra Alvarado says there is no apparent threat to the community.
"We do have a very good belief that the gunman was known to the victims," Alvarado said. "We do not believe there is some random gunman out there in the community."
They were found inside their home in the 15100 block of South Myrtle Avenue in Harvey, according to the Cook County Medical Examiner's office. Both men suffered gunshot wounds to the head and were dead on the scene, the medical examiner's office said.
Cooper, a diabetic, was an amputee who used a wheelchair, said his sister-in-law Karen Carter. He had two boys, 13 and 17, and a 20-year-old daughter with his wife, Stephanie Cooper.
Colts vice president Marcus Johnson said he was still stunned at the news Thursday morning.
"I haven't even looked on to even call the kids; I'm actually just still sitting here trying to figure out, how do we tell this team?" Johnson said.
Johnson both Brassel and Cooper were father figures to teens who sometimes don't have male role models in their lives.
Johnson says he knows what to tell kids when they lose a football game, but, "How do we tell them that somebody who is influential in their life is gone, I mean, I just don't know the words to say something like that."
The shooting comes as Harvey Mayor Eric Kellogg is reorganizing the beleaguered police department. The murders were just a short distance from Kellogg's home.
The Sun-Times Media Wire contributed to this report.
