(Twitter)
A tweet sent out by NFL player Tyrann Mathieu stating, “RIP Joe McKnight” has people wondering if Joe McKnight of the New York Jets and Kansas City Chiefs is dead.
Damn RIP Joe McKnight. Killed in his own city, #504Boys4Life
McKnight’s Wikipedia page has been edited to state he is deceased and died on December 1, 2016. According to a report by Nola.com, McKnight was involved in a shooting in a road rage incident in Terrytown, Louisiana. They write:
A witness, who declined to give her name, said she was leaving a store in the area when she saw a man at the intersection yelling at another man, who was trying to apologize. The man who was yelling shot the other man more than once, she said.
According to Fox 8, the shooter, identified as Ronald Gasser, 54, then waited for the police to show up.
McKnight was later identified by his family as the deceased.
Joe McKnight, born Joe Nathan McKnight on April 16, 1988, attended John Curtis Christian High School in River Ridge, Louisiana and played college football at the University of Southern California. According to ESPN, he was a fourth-round pick for the New York Jets in 2010 and that they “traded up 12 spots in the fourth round to take McKnight with the 112th overall selection.”
McKnight left the NFL in 2013 but returned with the Kansas City Chiefs in January, 2014, according to the National Football Post. He suffered a torn Achilles’ tendon in September and was ruled out for the rest of the season.
In 2016 he joined the Canadian Football League’s Edmonton Eskimos in August 2016 but was released due to fumbling issues. He joined the Saskatchewan Roughriders a month later, according to the CFL official website.
He was 28-years-old.