One night changed lives of Jurrell Casey and brother

Inmates at Calipatria State Prison in California are only allowed so much time on the phone, so Jurray Casey’s conversations with his brother — Titans defensive end Jurrell Casey — aren’t always long.

Jurrell Casey sometimes reads scriptures to his big brother, making sure Jurray “keeps his head right” during the monotonous days of a lengthy prison sentence.

Jurray Casey likes to talk football with Jurrell, offering tips, pointers and encouragement to his little brother, who’s become one of the NFL’s better defensive linemen. A team captain, Jurrell uses his 6-foot-1, 305-pound frame to stuff opposing running backs and his athleticism to hunt quarterbacks.

What the two don’t talk much about is the night that everything changed — the night that Jurray Casey was arrested and later charged with first-degree murder following the shooting death of Rashad Ali in Southern California. Jurray, 17 at the time, was the driver in a car in which shots were fired at another car, killing a passenger.

That’s not to say that — almost a decade later — all the questions about the incident are answered in the eyes of the Caseys and others. The brothers, however, have long since come to accept the reality that the night forever sent their lives in different directions.

Jurray, who just weeks before the shooting had received a scholarship to play football at Oregon, is now serving the ninth year of a minimum 25-year sentence.

Jurrell, meanwhile, has used the events of that night and — perhaps surprisingly — the advice of his older brother to make sure he’s following a different path, steering clear of the bad decisions and malignant influences that were Jurray’s downfall.

“I’m sure I could have gone down the same road, but once that incident happened, I realized that every decision you make off the field can deter you from your goals,” said Jurrell, a fifth-year member of the Titans who’s one of the team’s defensive cornerstones.

“He was such a great athlete and he was so smart, always getting As and Bs in high school. But he hung out with a bad crowd, and he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. They were bad decisions. That’s what I ended up learning from the whole situation.”

His brother, his idol

Growing up in Long Beach, Calif., Jurrell idolized his brother, who was older by two years.

He followed Jurray’s lead onto the football field, where Jurray was — according to Jurrell — the more talented of the two brothers. High school scouting services listed Jurray as a 6-2, 210-pound linebacker with 4.5-second speed in the 40-yard dash, a player who piled up more than 200 tackles during his final two high school seasons at powerhouse Long Beach Polytechnic High.

“He was a heck of an athlete, a really good football player,” said Raul Lara, who coached both Caseys in high school.

It was Jurray who also showed Jurrell the importance of good grades, as Jurray was on track to graduate from high school halfway through his senior year so that he could enroll early at Oregon.

“He was my biggest role model,” Jurrell said. “As a child, there’s always the one person you look up to. Everything he did, I wanted to follow.”

In a single-parent home, Jurray played another important role as well.

Though Jurray himself was unfortunately too familiar with the gangs and drug culture prevalent in the neighborhood, he made certain that Jurrell steered clear of that life.

“He always protected his little brother,” said Collette Burns, the Caseys’ mother. “(Jurray) was the one that was out there in the world. I’ll put it like that. But he never did want his brother out there with him. I really thank God that he was always the big brother watching over his little brother.”

The crime

In the early morning hours of Jan. 8, 2006, Jurray was driving three of his friends in a 1998 Ford Thunderbird that belonged to his cousin. While in Culver City, Calif., the foursome passed a Dodge Durango pickup truck containing Rashad Ali and three of his friends.

For reasons that are still unclear — there were some reports that gang signs were exchanged between the two vehicles — Jurray’s car made a U-turn and caught up to the pickup truck. Someone in the Thunderbird opened fire with a 9 mm handgun, hitting Ali, also 17, who would die later that day.

Police stopped the Thunderbird soon after, arrested Jurray and later charged him with first-degree murder among other crimes. On Aug. 6, 2007, Jurray was sentenced to 50 years to life in prison. None of Jurray's companions that night received any jail time.

In December 2008, Jurray’s sentence was cut in half upon appeal, in part because it was determined that the crime was not street-gang related.

The reduced sentence was a step in the right direction for the Caseys, but another appeal is still in the works. The Casey family acknowledges that Jurray was driving the car that night, but insists that he was not the shooter.

“It was his (cousin’s) car and he was driving, but I know that my son did not kill that person,” Burns said. “My son is in jail because he took a rap for someone else’s crime that he didn’t do. My son has had his name slandered and his career destroyed because nobody would step up in that car and tell what really happened.”

Added Lara, the brothers’ high school coach: “I’ll tell you this right now — myself and a whole bunch of people in the community know (Jurray) didn’t do it. A lot of people in the community know who did it, and he’s out there having fun while (Jurray) is still locked up. It’s amazing to me that loyalty code — don’t snitch and all that.”

'Stay focused'

In the aftermath of Ali’s murder and his brother’s arrest, Jurrell — then a 15-year-old sophomore at Long Beach — felt at times as if his world had collapsed as well.

Gone from the home was his role model, his protector, the father figure.

“It was very tough,” Jurrell said. “There were times where I basically wanted to give up on everything. I didn’t really know what to expect, especially since my brother was basically the man of the house.”

Burns, a cafeteria worker at Lindbergh Middle School, worried about her baby. But she credits Jurray for making sure his younger brother stayed on track.

“(Jurray) would talk to him or write him, and he was really the one who influenced him to stay focused,” Burns said. “He’d tell him, `You have to keep doing what Mom wants you do to, and keep doing what you’re supposed to do. Take the talent you have and run with it.’”

While Jurrell may have struggled privately, he presented a different impression to the outside world.

“We were kind of monitoring him from afar, and I just felt like he stepped up in terms of taking over his brother’s role,” Lara said. “If anything, I think it made him a stronger person. Not only that, but as a football player, I think he elevated his game because I think he felt like he had to prove that his family could (succeed).”

Jurrell earned a scholarship to Southern Cal, and in 2011, the Titans chose him with a third-round draft pick. He’s been one of the team’s most productive defenders ever since, twice named an alternate for the Pro Bowl.

'Haven't forgotten them'

The two brothers talk a couple of times per week. Jurrell gladly accepting the collect calls that are Jurray’s only form of electronic communication with the outside world.

Jurray stays as up to date as he can on Jurrell’s career — catching the occasional game on a prison television, watching a snippet or two of highlights, or at least reading up on his little brother’s statistics so that the two can talk football.

“I always look forward to his calls,” Jurrell said. “He lets me know what he sees on film, things like that. He’s always wanting me do what’s best and is looking out for my best interests.”

During most offseasons, Jurrell makes a couple of trips to the prison in Calipatria, a 300-acre complex located in south-central California, less than an hour’s drive from the Mexican border. The prison, designed for a capacity of 2,308 prisoners, currently holds almost 3,800.

The visits always begin with a hug, and Jurrell stays for the allotted five or six hours on both Saturday and Sunday.

“I just try to keep his head strong, try to stay there mentally with him,” Jurrell said. “The way you help people like that is that you have to let them see that you’re still supporting them, that you haven’t forgotten them. That’s the main reason I try to go out there, to let him know that you’ve still got your loved ones here with you.”

The visits serve another purpose, as well.

While Jurrell knows his brother played at least some role in an incident that took the life of another, he also realizes he owes his brother a debt of gratitude — for never letting Jurrell travel down a similar path, one that would have been all too easy to follow.

“He kept me off the streets, he wouldn’t allow me to go out with him and he wouldn’t allow me to hang out with a certain crowd,” Jurrell said. “There were a lot of (older) brothers that were more like, `Come on, let’s go,’ with their brothers. I would have been right there with him.

“But he wasn’t like that. I thank him for that every day.”

Reach John Glennon at 615-259-8262 and on Twitter @glennonsports.

JURRELL CASEY

Age: 25

Hometown: Long Beach, Calif.

Position: Defensive end

Height, weight.: 6-1, 305

Nickname: “Tut-tut”

Favorite movie: “The Wood”

Favorite actor: Denzel Washington

Favorite car: Cadillac Escalade

Favorite video game: NBA 2K