Authorities Want to Know Aaron Hernandez’s Role in a 2007 Shooting

Another day, another years-old shooting incident in which Aaron Hernandez’s involvement is now being questioned. Sunriiise, sunset.

The year: 2007. The setting: Gainesville, Florida. ESPN couldn’t get all the details because Aaron Hernandez’s name has been mostly redacted from the police report due to his status as a minor. But here’s what they know: Hernandez, then a freshman at Florida, went to the Venue nightclub with two teammates and a rookie Jaguar player. According to the police report, a man at the club named Randall Cason had stolen Hernandez’s friend’s necklace. Cason also told police his brother had fought with some Gators players the previous week.

When Cason left the club with two friends, his car stopped at a light and someone fired a gun into the vehicle, wounding both friends. Cason said the shooter was a “Hawaiian” or “Hispanic” male, 6’3″ or 6’4″, and about 230 to 240 pounds. He had a lot of tattoos. He was accompanied by a black male. Cason apparently identified the two as Hernandez and Nelson, but later backed away from that claim. Hernandez refused to speak with investigators and invoked a right to a lawyer.

And so the case went unsolved. Might it have been Hernandez? There obviously wasn’t enough cause to charge him at the time, so who knows? But apparently Massachusetts investigators have reached out to Gainesville police to find out. Just like they probably want to find out whether Hernandez shot a man in the face in February, ruptured a bouncer’s eardrum in 2007, murdered two guys outside a Boston club in 2012, and, you know, executed Odin Lloyd a few weeks ago. Sunrise, sunset.