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Coach of top-ranked Michigan girls basketball team fatally shoots teen during alleged robbery

A 70-year-old coach of Michigan's top-ranked girls basketball team reportedly shot and killed a student during an alleged robbery attempt, according to the Detroit Free Press.

A Martin Luther King Jr. High girls basketball coach fatally shot Michael Scott, 16, during an alleged robbery -- WDIV
A Martin Luther King Jr. High girls basketball coach fatally shot Michael Scott, 16, during an alleged robbery -- WDIV

Michael Scott, 16, and a teenaged associate approached Martin Luther King Jr. (Detroit, Mich.) High assistant girls basketball coach Ernest Robinson outside the school "in an apparent hold-up" on Friday night, when the coach fatally shot Scott and wounded the other teenager, Detroit Police Sgt. Eren Stephens told the newspaper.

Scott was a freshman at the school until he was expelled the week before the shooting, the Detroit FOX affiliate reported. The second teen, who remains in serious condition, is not a MLK Jr. High student, district spokesman Steve Wasko told the Free Press. The Detroit Police Department's homicide unit is investigating the incident.

"Everyone, I notice over time, gets in with the wrong crowd," Scott's older brother Calvin Stingall told a Detroit news station. "I think recently he may have been."

Meanwhile, the girls hoop team has started the season 13-0 and sits atop the Detroit Free Press standings. The Crusaders reached the Class A state semifinals last season and returned DePaul-bound senior wing Antania Hayes this season. King High also features three additional Division I recruits on the roster: junior post Marte Grays, sophomore wing Leah Matthis and sophomore point guard Janae Williams.

Surveillance videos revealed that the two teenagers attacked the coach, who has a concealed weapon permit and serves as a police reservist, as he walked two unidentified players to their cars, police sources told the local FOX affiliate. The girls basketball team had just defeated Communication Media Arts (Detroit, Mich.) High, 76-10.

Police believe the coach acted in self-defense and the shooting was "justifiable," the sources told FOX 2.

Court documents revealed Scott stood trial in March for an armed robbery of a pizza shop in December. The alleged gun used by the teens has not been discovered, according to reports, and Scott's mother Priscilla told WDIV "Michael does not even carry a gun, no. He wouldn't even touch a gun. I lost my son, and I want answers."

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