SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) — Before 2 a.m. Monday morning, Sacramento Police said a shooting happened outside a nightclub near 15th and L Street downtown.
When officers arrived at the scene, they found five men shot and one of them didn’t survive. That man was 31-year-old Greg Najee Grimes.
The mother of Grimes told FOX40 Monday morning he was out Sunday night having fun with friends — not knowing it would be his last night out.
“Najee is our only child,” Deborah Grimes said. “That just makes it all the more painful.”
Greg Grimes used to be a football player at Inderkum High and continued his athletic career at Boise State.
When he came back to Sacramento, his mom said he wanted to go back to his roots.
“He wanted to be involved with the students there,” Deborah Grimes said. “He started working with the special needs program. Then he started coaching the d-line. He was given that opportunity.”
A spokesperson for the Natomas Unified School District told FOX40 that Greg Grimes was an assistant football coach and an instructional assistant at Inderkum High. The district is also sending his family and friends heartfelt condolences.
“He genuinely loved the players that he coached,” said Inderkum head football coach Reginald Harris.
Harris told FOX40 that Grimes losing his life to gun violence makes him angry.
“When it is going to take somebody to take to control these guns?” Harris said.
Four months before he was killed, Grimes’ mother said she got the chance to tell him she loved him.
“My heart is so broken. It hurts so bad,” Deborah Grimes said.
Love is a word that serves as a constant reminder in the Grimes household.
“He always told me, dad, I love you,” said Grimes’ father Gregory Grimes. “I always told him, Najee, I love you.”
Grimes leaves behind a 4-year-old son.
A spokesperson from Boise State told FOX40 that the entire Boise State football family is sad to hear Grimes has died and that he will be missed.