NIU Football Player Hurt In Drive-By Shooting Out For Season

By Anna Deem in News on Apr 23, 2011 5:45PM

Devon Butler, a linebacker for Northern Illinois University who was wounded in a drive-by shooting on April 5, announced during a press conference in DeKalb on Friday that will not be playing in 2011. Butler was released from a Rockford-area hospital last Tuesday, but he has a long recovery in front of him, having suffered from a collapsed lung from the shooting. He explained during the press conference that he will start physical therapy in six months, and in the meantime, he will be concentrating on classwork and regaining his strength. "I'm going to take my redshirt year," said Butler, a junior from Pembroke Pines, Florida, via the Chicago Sun-Times. "The doctors have laid out what I need to do to get back to the classroom and also the football team."

Butler had stopped by a friend's apartment on April 5 when a gunman in an SUV fired into the apartment building he was in. "Those were a few days that I definitely don't want to relive," Butler said via the Sun-Times. "I just stopped by to see a friend and play a few video games. I was just basically in the wrong place at the wrong time." Butler suffered a collapsed lung from the shooting. Bond was set at $1 million for each of the accused NIU students involved in the shooting.