Friends, neighbors and admirers have helped raise more than $10,000 for a Georgia basketball coach who was shot in the face while intervening in what police called a gang-related fight.
Chris Head, 45, was struck while trying to break up a fight during an adult basketball league game March 14 in Butts County, The Atlanta Journal-Constitution previously reported. He was flown to Atlanta Medical Center and has remained there in the intensive care unit since, according to a Facebook fundraiser organized by his wife, Tomeka.
After three days, the fundraiser is nearly halfway to its $25,000 goal.
Five minors were arrested at the scene and warrants were taken out against several adults, the AJC reported.
The fundraiser details a lengthy recovery for Head. He was shot in the right side of his jaw and had surgery Monday, the page said, with more surgeries to follow.
“His mouth is expected to be wired shut for several months,” the fundraising page said. “It is undetermined how long Chris will be in the hospital and out of work.”
Comments from friends on the page offer prayers and wishes for a speedy recovery. One friend said Head “had a heart of a lion.”
Through his coaching position, Head knew some of the men and teenagers involved in the shooting, Butts County Sheriff Gary Long previously said.
“A coach of the rec department, who has spent 20 years of his life mentoring and coaching our youth, (was) familiar with the four individuals due to coaching them in the past,” Long said.
Authorities believe the shooting was the result of “ongoing violence” between one criminal street gang from the city of Flovilla and another from Crosstown, a neighborhood in Jackson. Long’s office is working with the Jackson Police Department to investigate Head’s shooting and other recent acts of gang-related violence.
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