Police release 911 call in shooting of former ECU football player Domonique Lennon

Police have released a 911 call from the scene of a shooting in Raleigh that left a former East Carolina University football player dead.

In the call, placed at about 9:44 p.m. Friday, an unidentified woman says she was walking past the popular Bahama Breeze Caribbean restaurant on Wake Forest Road when she said she thought she saw someone get shot.

Anthony Domonique Lennon, 24, of Suffolk, Va., was pronounced dead at the scene.

“I think I just walked past somebody getting shot, I’m not sure,” she said. “It’s about 10 or 12, bang, bang, bang.”

She said she saw men fighting between two cars in the parking lot of the restaurant and then heard “boom, boom, boom, boom, about 10 or 12 of them.

“I saw them fighting and I saw flashes, like sparks,” she said.

The caller can be heard speaking to someone else: “Do you see him? Do you see somebody laying there?

“Oh s---, somebody’s dead,” she said, beginning to cry.

The woman said the man she was speaking to says he sees blood, “he doesn’t want to get too close to it.”

The woman said Lennon was lying between what looked like a black Range Rover and another vehicle.

She said it looked like he had holes in his arm.

“I don’t know where he’s hit ... He’s not moving at all,” she said.

“Oh, poor baby.”

There were many people in the parking lot of the restaurant when police said Lennon became the clear target of 10 or more gunshots while he was outside the restaurant.

No one else was injured, police said.

Detectives still are investigating, but Bill McGregor, Raleigh police watch commander, said Saturday that police think there was more than one shooter, given the number of shots fired and other information gathered in the investigation.

Anyone with information is asked to call Raleigh CrimeStoppers at 919-834-HELP or go to raleighcrimestoopers.org for text and email reporting options. CrimeStoppers pays cash rewards for anonymous tips that help solve cases.

A GoFundMe has been set up to raise money to start a college fund for Lennon’s son, Landon. His high school team – the 2009 Nansemond-Suffolk Academy varsity football team – started the campaign.

Lennon earned three letters as a defensive back for the Pirates from 2011-15.

“East Carolina University, the athletics department and Pirate football program are saddened by the tragic passing of Domonique Lennon,” the university said in a statement. “He made a positive impact on many people during his time as a student athlete at ECU and earned the respect of both his teammates and coaches. We extend our condolences to Domonique's family, friends and all those who knew and loved him.”

Lennon was a valuable leader during a time when the team was losing much of its starting defensive veterans, former head coach Ruffin McNeill told The Daily Reflector in 2014, Lennon’s junior season.

This story was originally published June 26, 2017 at 12:21 PM with the headline "Police release 911 call in shooting of former ECU football player Domonique Lennon."