Ex-Chiefs GM Pioli tries to make sense of Belcher tragedy
Former Kansas City Chiefs general manager Scott Pioli is still trying to cope with the tragedy of witnessing linebacker Jovan Belcher shoot himself on Dec. 1 in the parking lot of Arrowhead Stadium after killing his girlfriend.
"The truth is I haven't made sense of it. I don't know if any one of us that were there will ever make sense of it," Piolo said on the Dan Patrick Show. "Here's the reality: Every human being, I don't care who you are, have these deep dark places and you don't know, even those you're most intimate with, there's something you don't know. Clearly there was something with Jovan that none of us knew."
Belcher shot Kasandra Perkins, 22, nine times at their home in front of her mother and the couple's daughter and then drove to the stadium, where he committed suicide in front of Pioli and then-coach Romeo Crennel.
Pioli has since parted ways with the Chiefs. Crennel was fired by the Chiefs after a tumultuous 2012 season.
"Surreal doesn't even do it justice, the word surreal, to try to characterize it,"Pioli said. "It was unlike anything I've ever been through."
Asked whether he has thought about what he might have done to stop Belcher, Pioli told Patrick, "Of course, absolutely. If you're human, if you have a heart, a conscience, if you have a thoughtful mind, absolutely. There are a lot of gymnastics your mind goes through and second-guessing of a lot of things. That's stuff I'll figure out in time."
