Mediaite (Jamie Frevele), "New York Times Issues Lengthy Correction After Kai Spears' Defamation Lawsuit," reports; here's the correction, from the Times site (posted Saturday):
An article on March 16 about a fatal shooting that involved members of the University of Alabama basketball team misidentified the person who was in the car with one player, Brandon Miller, when the shooting occurred.
Based on information from a person familiar with the case, the article erroneously identified that person as Kai Spears, a freshman basketball player. After the article was initially published, Alabama's athletic director and Spears's father denied that Spears was present. The Times included those responses and reviewed its reporting, but did not conclude that any other change to the article was warranted at that time.
On Wednesday, Spears filed a defamation suit against The Times that included new details about the incident. Based on that information, editors assigned further reporting, which determined that the other person at the scene was not Spears but Cooper Lee, a student manager for the team. The Times regrets the error in the initial report.
The online version of the article has been revised to remove the erroneous information; the latest updates appear today on Page B8.
You can also see the Complaint, and the supporting affidavit. Note that, under Alabama law (which may apply here, though the matter isn't certain),
