by Patrick H. Moore
The New England Patriot’s star tight end Aaron Hernandez is now their former star tight end. He has also been charged with murder and several counts of unlawful possession of firearms. Less than two hours after the charges were announced, the New England Patriots, coached by the noted disciplinarian 
and future Hall-of-Famer, Bill Belichick, announced that they were releasing Hernandez. Although this step was no doubt inevitable, one might have hoped that they would have waited at least a few days before giving Hernandez the axe. Talk about hitting a guy when he’s down for the count! But grace and consideration is not the Patriots way. Belichick runs a “very tight ship” and woe to anyone who is unable to get with the program.
NBC News staff writer Elizabeth Chuck reports:
Former New England Patriots tight end Aaron Hernandez drove his friend to a remote spot in an industrial park in the dead of night — still fuming from a fight at a nightclub three nights earlier — before the man was murdered, prosecutors alleged in a Massachusetts court on Wednesday.
“He orchestrated the crime from the beginning and took steps to conceal and destroy evidence,” First Assistant District Attorney Bill McCauley told an Attleboro District Court.
Predictably, Hernandez pleaded not guilty to the first-degree murder charge and all of the firearms charges, which included possessing a large-capacity firearm. The body of the deceased, Hernandez’ former friend Odin Lloyd, a 27-year-old semi-professional football player, was found about a mile from Hernandez’ Massachusetts home. Equally predictably, the judge ordered him to be held without bail because of the murder charge.
Wearing a white V-neck shirt, red sports shorts, and handcuffs, Hernandez showed no emotion as prosecutors laid out a bruising account of what allegedly happened the night semi-professional football player Lloyd was killed, citing what they say is surveillance camera footage, text messages, and witnesses who were working the overnight shift who heard gunshots as evidence. Hernandez wiped tears from his face at the very end of the arraignment.
Lloyd’s bullet-punctured body was found by a jogger on June 17 in an industrial park about one mile away from the ex-tight end’s North Attleborough home.
The prosecutor’s are claiming that the killing was prompted by a fight between the two friends during a trip on June 14 to a Boston nightclub. The prosecutors stated that on June 17, Hernandez and two friends allegedly picked Lloyd up at his house at 2:30 a.m. They further stated that surveillance footage from Hernandez’s house shows him leaving earlier in the night with a weapon.
The authorities said that employees working the overnight shift at the industrial park where Lloyd’s body was later found reported hearing gunshots between 3:23 a.m. and 3:27 a.m. The prosecutors have not revealed who they believe fired the shots.
“It is at bottom a circumstantial case. It is not a strong case,” Michael Fee, Hernandez’s attorney, who had asked for bail, said in court.
The prosecutors, however, claim that Hernandez was filmed exiting the rented vehicle, in which he had driven to the industrial site, a few minutes after the alleged slaying carrying a gun.
Hernandez, 23, was handcuffed and placed under arrest just before 9 a.m. on Wednesday by Massachusetts State Police and North Attleborough police. His home has been searched several times over the past week.
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This could not have come at a worse time, not only for Bill Belichick and the New England Patriots, but also for the National Football League. The NFL is more popular than ever (I’m a huge fan), but it is becoming increasingly evident that the game is not only dangerously violent, but that far too many of its players are not the sort of people you would not want to have over for dinner, unless, of course, you are comfortable hanging out with thugs, dog-fighters and felons.
Click here to go to our previous article on the Hernandez murder case:
Eat Your Heart Out, Bill Belichek: Patriots Tight End Aaron Hernandez Wanted in Murder Probe