A St. Louis youth football coach was shot multiple times he alleges by an angry parent who was upset his son was not a starting player on the team, court documents state. …

Police and court documents state that the two men got into a verbal argument on the day of the shooting. A probable cause statement says that before shots rang out, Latimore “pulled his gun out and gave it to someone to hold and that the defendant subsequently shot him multiple times while he was unarmed.”

Jason Clemmons said that Latimore handed his gun to his friend so he could get into a fistfight with Daryl Clemmons. Jason Clemmons alleged that Latimore fell during the brawl and asked his friend to give him the gun back.

“In the midst of him getting the gun in his hand, our brother shot in self-defense,” Jason Clemmons told the station.

[For the moment, it sounds as though both men contributed to and then escalated this incident. But if the defense is that asking for the gun back justified the shooting, well, good luck with that. You can’t claim self-defense in a violent confrontation you either initiate or contribute substantially to without attempting to retreat from it first, at least in most states. The only sure conclusion from this is that neither of the men are role models for the children involved in that program. — Ed]