Students Give Account Of Fatal Night At UConn

STORRS - About 300 people had gathered inside the ballroom of the University of Connecticut Student Union Saturday night expecting a good time to cap off homecoming week.

The party, for students and guests, was sponsored by the university's West Indian Student Awareness Organization. It began at 9 p.m., several hours after the Huskies beat Louisville in the homecoming football game. Among the attendees was Jasper Howard, a 20-year-old junior who, as a 5-foot-9, 174-pound starting cornerback, had much to celebrate. He had helped lead his team to victory that day and, as coach Randy Edsall would say later, Howard was going to be a father.

But within 20 minutes, the Student Union went from a place of celebration to a bloody crime scene, leaving police officers to piece together what had happened.

UConn students interviewed Monday said the party was scheduled to end at 1:30 a.m. Instead, it ended abruptly when a fire alarm sounded at 12:26 a.m. As the crowd left the building, there was a commotion and people appeared to be getting mad, said sophomore Ettienne Percy.

He said that fights broke out and, within a few minutes, he saw Howard fall and his friends go down to help him.

"The kid was just stumbling and he kind of fell," Percy said. "There was too many people. No one knew he was hurt until he fell."

Howard was stabbed once in the abdomen and eventually bled to death; he died at St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford. Edsall said Monday that one football player held Howard as he lay dying, while another player tried to put pressure on the wound. Amid the commotion, another student, Brian Parker, also was stabbed. He was treated at Windham Hospital and and released.

A freshman who had been at the dance said she was surprised to see only three police officers at the scene of the stabbing. The police prevented anyone from re-entering the Student Union and let the crowd disperse after the incident.

"Everyone was standing around [Howard] while they were working on him," said the freshman, who declined to give her name.

State police said Monday that they weren't notified about the stabbing until after 2 a.m. UConn officials said Monday they had the appropriate number of university police officers and security guards at the party. In light of what happened, UConn officials said the university might review protocol.

The mood on campus Monday in the wake of Howard's death was a mixture of back-to-business, shock and grief. One of those grieving was Shirley Armenteros, a graduate student who had bonded with Howard over their shared Miami hometown. She learned of her friend's death Sunday morning from Facebook.

"I really didn't believe it," Armenteros said, tears streaming down her cheeks as she walked on campus. "I called him, and it went straight to voice mail."

Armenteros and Howard lived in the same dorm and became friends at the beginning of the school year, she said. Both viewed UConn as a way to get out of the rough neighborhoods they grew up in.

They had many of the same friends back home and planned on getting together during school breaks, Armenteros said. They used to talk about the Miami Dolphins and discussed Howard's NFL dreams, she said.

Freshman Alexandra Fidellage, who described herself as a cheerleader for the football and basketball teams, was struck by how much a community could lose in such a short period of time.

"It's just hard to think we were all so close and then he's dead," said Fidellage, who didn't know Howard personally but watched him from the sidelines.

Kathy Ruiz, a sophomore who knows some of Howard's friends, said everyone she talked to was "shaken up."

"No one's said anything about why anyone would do this," Ruiz said.

One of Howard's friends who declined to give her name called Howard "fun-loving" and "kind-hearted."

"Every time you were near him, you had a good time," she said.

Armenteros said Howard had recently taken an interest in a pair of pink-and-black eyeglasses that she owned.

"He always wanted them, and now I think he should have them," she said. "I'm going to give them to his mom."