Woman Says Former UTEP Players Assaulted Man To Stop Attack On Her Daughter

A few days after two former UTEP football players, Godwin Akinduro and Marcus Jones, were arrested on charges of assault, their friend’s mother is defending them. Her account drastically contrasts the one painted by El Paso Police in a police report.

Kunigundo Brown said both men were arrested and charged after they protected her daughter from a sexual attack that took place at a West Side parking lot at Mesa and Sunland Park Dr.

“It’s because they’re black,” Brown said as to why she thinks they were arrested.

Brown claims her daughter was being sexually harrassed and was about to be assaulted when her friends, Akinduro and Jones, stepped in and stopped the attack.

“If it weren’t for them my daughter wouldn’t be here today,” Brown said.

However, police tell a whole other story.

An El Paso Police report states Akindura pointed a gun at a man while Jones repeatedly rammed his head into a fence.

The District Attorney’s Office, which is now handling the case, says the victim approached the SUV Akinduro and Jones were in and mistook them for his friends.

A spokeswoman for the DA’s Office went on to say Akinduro and Jones then followed the man inside the restaurant and continue4d to become aggressive towards him, ultimately leading up to the identified man being assaulted outside.

However, Brown, who is speaking on behalf of her daughter, told ABC-7 she doesn’t believe her daughter’s friends would have done that.

Jones bonded out of jail on May 15, but Akinduro remained jailed on aggravated assault with a deadly weapon charge.

As part of this report, El Paso Police did not return messages or phone calls requesting comment on the allegation that the officer may have been racially profiling the former Miners.