Suspect in Fatal Shooting of Ex-NFL Player Released from Custody

Allen Kee / ESPN(NEW ORLEANS) — The man who allegedly killed former NFL player Joe McKnight on Thursday has been released from custody in Louisiana, officials told ABC News Friday morning.

The shooting happened Thursday afternoon near an intersection in Terrytown, which is about 5 miles south of New Orleans across the Mississippi River.

Police found 28-year-old McKnight suffering from multiple gunshot wounds; he died at the scene, the sheriff’s office said.

The suspect, 54-year-old Ronald Gasser, stayed at the scene after the shooting, and was then taken into custody, the sheriff’s office said.

Gasser “relinquished his weapon to our officers,” Jefferson Parish Sheriff Newell Normand said at a news conference Thursday. He was questioned and released overnight, police said.

“We are interviewing a number of witnesses as well as Mr. Gasser,” Normand said Thursday. “Mr. Gasser did in fact shoot Mr. McKnight and we will be releasing additional details as we get through these interviews with these witnesses as well as with Mr. Gasser.”

The deadly shooting was “being investigated as a possible road rage incident,” the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Office said Thursday. Either a grand jury or the district attorney will decide to file charges, police added.

McKnight went to high school in Louisiana before he headed west for college in 2006, where he became a football star at the University of Southern California.

After USC, McKnight played for the New York Jets and the Kansas City Chiefs.

McKnight’s death marks the second time an NFL player was shot and killed in a motorist incident in New Orleans this year. In April, former New Orleans Saints defensive end Will Smith was fatally shot while driving in New Orleans’s Lower Garden District.

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