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Who Killed defensive end for the University of Miami Bryan Pata? And Why?

By ROBERT ANDREW POWELL

November 23, 2006

MIAMI, Nov. 22 ? The killing of Bryan Pata was one of the highest-profile murders in a city familiar with violent crime. Yet two weeks after the shooting here, the police have not named a suspect or released any indication of why Pata, a starting defensive end for the University of Miami, was gunned down in the parking lot of his off-campus apartment building.

Despite the resources of the university and the football team?s boosters, the reward for information leading to an arrest is $1,000, the minimum amount offered in all homicides. Officials at the Miami-Dade Police Department have said they are talking to many people as part of their investigation and have promised to release information as soon as possible.

?It?s ongoing,? Cmdr. Linda O?Brien said.

The Hurricanes have endured an unusually difficult season. Before the season, safety Willie Cooper was shot in the buttocks during an altercation in his front yard. A teammate of Cooper?s, Brandon Meriweather, fired three shots in reply. An on-field brawl on Oct. 14 with players from crosstown Florida International University received national attention.

The team has struggled mightily on the field, as well. The Hurricanes are 5-6 over all and 2-5 in the Atlantic Coast Conference, and Coach Larry Coker?s job status is in doubt. Still, Miami plays Boston College at the Orange Bowl on Thursday with a chance to qualify for a bowl game and avoid the program?s second losing season in the past 27 years. Pata was a 6-foot-4, 280-pound senior who was expected to be drafted into the National Football League next year.

?He always called himself the King of Miami,? said Jada Brody, his girlfriend and a fellow student at the university. ? ?King of Miami! Nobody can touch me!? ?

On Tuesday, Nov. 7, Pata woke up early to attend a mandatory 6:30 a.m. football meeting. Despite the hour, he was said to be in high spirits, warning of the surprise he was going to unleash on a coach who happened to celebrate a birthday that day. During class hours, Pata sent a text message to Brody to thank her for the best relationship he had ever been in. ?In a few years, we?re going to get married so you better be ready when I ask you,? he wrote.

At an on-campus memorial service last week, Brody said, ?I think back now, and I think that was his way of saying goodbye to me.?

Pata attended practice as usual. As the workout ended, he and some teammates dumped a cooler of Gatorade on the birthday coach, as promised. After eating a catered meal, Pata left practice in his black 2005 Infinity QX56 with personalized license plates, driving down U.S. 1 to the Colony Apartments in suburban Kendall.

It was early evening. Family members later reported that Pata was seen arguing with a man in the parking lot of the gated apartment complex. After Pata turned away from the man, according to the family, he was shot several times, including in the back of the head. Brody found the body.

Pata was 22, the youngest of nine children raised in North Miami by a single mother, a Haitian immigrant who reportedly worked as a hotel maid. Pata graduated from Central High School, in the heart of Liberty City, an impoverished section of Miami.

At the University of Miami, he lived a lifestyle more associated with professional athletics than with the academic world. Most conspicuously, he drove that 2005 Infinity with customized rims and an on-board navigation system. On his MySpace Web page, which was still active Wednesday afternoon, Pata referred to the Infinity as ?the Big Boy truck.?

The Palm Beach Post reported that the Infinity had been a gift to Pata from his sister?s husband, Kahane Andrew Lynes, according to a family member. Yet when Lynes unsuccessfully appealed a trespassing conviction in Miami-Dade County last year, he employed a public defender. Lynes declared himself indigent upon his arrest on trespassing and battery charges in 2003, and again in 2004 as his case worked through the system, according to court records.

Pata arrived at the University of Miami in 2003 driving not the Infinity but a customized ?candy? blue Chevy Tahoe with 24-inch spinners and an on-board television monitor. The truck was a gift, he said, from his mother and his sister. Driving either the Infinity or the Tahoe, he racked up close to $1,000 in parking tickets and traffic citations, records show.

Although several of the tickets were for speeding, Pata told The Miami Herald that he had yet another car he drove for speed. Customizing cars and selling them on eBay was a hobby, he said.

Another of his hobbies was guns. The police confiscated at least two guns from Pata?s apartment after the shooting. On Pata?s MySpace page is a picture of an assault rifle flanked by the words ?Defend Haiti.?

Violent gun crime is anything but new to Miami. A story line of the summer was a spike in the number of young people killed by firearms. A high school student was struck by a stray bullet at a block party. Another student was killed after he showed off a car his father had bought him for graduation. A 9-year-old girl was shot in the neck by a stray bullet as she played with a doll in her front yard.

On the day of Pata?s on-campus memorial, a stray bullet hit a school bus near Central High, Pata?s alma mater.

The culture of gun violence even made its way into the Pata memorial. After speeches by friends and coaches, including Coker, an audience of about 500 students, teammates and family members was presented a video reflection. A song by Tupac Shakur played over photographs of Pata on the field for the Hurricanes. There were images of Pata standing in the water off South Beach with his girlfriend, then a shot of them posing, with wide smiles, on the steps where the fashion designer Gianni Versace was killed.

After the memorial, members of Pata?s large family stood outside speculating about who had killed him. A family friend, wearing a helmet because he had been shot in the head, railed against the Florida International team. His theory was that the shooting was related to the on-field brawl.

Pata?s father and a brother have said publicly that they believe jealously was a factor; people from the neighborhood did not like how large Pata was living.

For now, they can only speculate and wonder why so little has been offered for information in the investigation.

Rewards for crime information are set not by the police department but by Crime Stoppers, a private agency that works with the police and the news media. Tipsters are granted anonymity, and their information is forwarded to the police. The president of Miami-Dade Crime Stoppers, Jack Sullivan, opened an account at a local bank to accept donations aimed at raising the reward in the Pata case.

?We were getting calls from people who wanted to donate $10 or $15,? Sullivan said Monday. He said he had not yet been contacted by the university or by any of Miami?s famous alumni, like the former Dallas Cowboys receiver Michael Irvin, who attended the campus memorial last week.

Said Mark Pray, the university?s assistant athletic director for communications: ?We are working with the police department. If or when they were to ask us, we will work with them to facilitate an additional reward.?

The Hurricanes? game Thursday will be their first at home since Pata?s death. Fans have been encouraged to wear white in his honor.