Former Purdue football player Michael Eargle shot and killed in New Jersey

Michael Eargle, a former defensive back at Purdue, was shot and killed in downtown Elizabeth, N.J., on Tuesday afternoon, the Union County Prosecutor’s Office said, via NJ.com.

Eargle was 28.

The shooting occurred in a busy part of town, a few blocks away from Elizabeth police headquarters and next to YMCA, according to the report. There are also two high schools near the scene.

“I was sitting over there in my car and saw three groups fighting and then they started running,” an anonymous witness said. “Then I heard five or six shots.”

Eargle was a standout football player at Elizabeth High before playing for the Boilermakers in 2010 and 2011. He graduated from Purdue in 2012 with a sociology degree.

He worked for the city housing authority in Elizabeth, according to his aunt Deborah Bennett-Smith, who was called to the scene by his mother.