The first time Devin M. Butler visited his brother in the hospital, nobody had told him exactly what happened. Nobody knew much about the previous night, on Columbus Day 2008, when Devin’s older brother, Darius, was shot five times: thrice in the back, once in the arm and once in the leg. Nobody could grapple with the misfortune on Georgia Avenue in Washington, D.C., only a few blocks from the Butler home.

Devin, then an eighth-grader, was off from school on the morning of Oct. 13, when his father, Anthony, walked into his bedroom. He told him that Darius had been shot. Hours later when Butler visited Washington Hospital Center, Darius was in a coma. The sight shook Butler, who stood right next to Darius, praying for his recovery post-surgery.

Then, Darius woke up.

“One of the most telling things I remember is when he opened his eyes,” Devin said. “I had football practice that afternoon. I told him that I wanted to stay with him all day. He told me, ‘Nah, go to practice.’ He told me to always make sure I go to practice. So I went to practice.”

Devin is driven by his older brother’s indomitable spirit. The shooting altered Darius’ life. How he handled it has shaped Devin’s. The graduate-transfer defensive back for Syracuse will play his final game of college football Saturday in the Carrier Dome, when the Orange (4-7, 2-5 Atlantic Coast) hosts Boston College (6-5, 3-4). He has 22 tackles this season, including three last month at No. 2 Miami. Devin will matchup against the Eagles’ top receivers, including Kobay White and Jeff Smith, which he has done for much of his life following the first visit he made to the hospital that Monday afternoon in 2008.

Darius was the first person Devin ever looked up to. He was both a role model and a mentor. They shared a room for about 10 years. They often talked about football, girls and school. Their most vivid memories include running around their house together, pretending to have super powers where they could conduct electricity and make fire.

But for two weeks, Darius was bedridden from the bullets. After several more weeks in a rehabilitation, he moved back home. He is paralyzed from the waist down and will be in a wheelchair for the rest of his life. He has an 8-year-old daughter, Madison, who was conceived two months before he was shot.

“Life is always teaching you,” Devin said. “To see the way that Darius fights through it, even today, the way he keeps smiling and approaching life, it’s hard not to let that inspire you. He’s smiling out here, living life, so I can’t complain about a damn thing.”

The shots rang out in the Washington sky sometime before 4 a.m. on Oct. 13. Darius was leaving a party his freshman year at Howard University, headed for his dormitory. The gunman was never apprehended.

Darius said he never blacked out. He fought to stay awake the entire time, until an ambulance pulled up. A stranger spoke with him to keep him distracted.

“They got me in the truck and said, ‘OK, we’re going to take you into surgery and save your life,’” Darius recalled. “I felt like it was a dream almost. I really couldn’t believe it. I knew what it was, but I couldn’t believe it. I was on the ground but like, ‘Did I just got shot? Is this a dream? Oh man.’

“I never let myself think I was going to die. I was always like, ‘I’m going to be alright.’ I thought, always, I’m not going to let myself die.”

About 4:30 a.m., Anthony Butler woke up to a banging at the front door. He had no idea who would be knocking at such an hour. A police officer asked if he had a son named Darius Butler. Anthony said yes. The officer told Anthony that Darius needed surgery and was at Washington Hospital Center. Anthony and his wife, Karen, drove to the hospital.

While there, it was confirmed that Darius would be a father. Around that time, Darius pulled out his laptop on his hospital bed and opened up the notes app. Since he was about 8, he liked to write poems. In his hospital bed, he wrote a rap song about the driving forces in his life.

“I do this for my mama, I do this for my daughter, I do this for myself, I don’t even gotta be famous, I just do this for my health.”

Devin now listens to “4 My Health” before every game he plays. It reminds him of Darius’s plight. Darius missed only one of Devin’s varsity games at Gonzaga College (Washington, D.C.) High School. He was in the hospital for that one. Mostly, he was stationed in his wheelchair on the sideline cheering on Devin, who is five years younger.

Meanwhile, Devin grew into an elite high school player. He started three years at Gonzaga College High School, becoming the nation’s 36th-rated cornerback by Scout.com. One night as a junior, Devin was sitting on the couch with his mother watching the film “Rudy,” about a player who wanted to fulfill his dream of playing for Notre Dame. About 90 minutes later, a Notre Dame coach sent Devin a Facebook message. They spoke that night and Devin received a scholarship.

In three seasons for the Irish, Devin played in 37 games as a cornerback and on special teams. He recorded 39 tackles, seven passes defended and one interception. Devin expected to start for the Irish in 2016, but he fractured his foot at the end of the 2015 season and then again in the offseason.

Last summer, UND suspended Butler indefinitely after he was arrested Aug. 20 near a bar in South Bend, Indiana. He pleaded guilty to a Class A misdemeanor of resisting law enforcement. Another charge, for battery against a public safety official, was dropped.

Devin redshirted the 2016 season, a main reason why he explored graduate transfer options. He considered Illinois, Connecticut and Virginia as well as Syracuse, where he visited twice. SU head coach Dino Babers is a proponent of graduate transfers, having brought on five over the past two seasons, and Devin was granted his release from Notre Dame last September. He said Syracuse wanted to help him reshape his career.

“They were willing to give me a second chance,” Butler said. “Coming out of my situation, it wasn’t the best. It was a risk on their part bringing me in. I wanted people to know I just wasn’t that guy. There was so much more to me than that one lapse of judgment, one night of questionable conduct. I wanted a place where I could re-write my narrative.”

Syracuse became that place. He arrived in January for spring practice and became an integral piece of the Orange’s third-down defense, which ranked No. 1 in the country earlier this season and now ranks seventh.

Nine years after the shooting, Darius’s spirit is very much alive. All season, Devin said he spoke with Darius three to four times per week. He said Darius will be his best man at his wedding someday.

Both Devin and Darius wear tattoos honoring their relationship. For both, the main art is, “My Brother’s Keeper.” On Devin’s left bicep, the three words are surrounded by five bullet holes, each representing the hits Darius took.

For Darius, the main art also includes two silhouettes of people, one taller than the other. The smaller one wears No. 7, Devin’s number. The taller silhouette represents Darius.

It is a metaphor for their life. It serves as a message that while 6-foot-1 Devin stands taller than Darius, who sits in a wheelchair, Devin will always look up to his older brother.

“Devin understands where his strength comes from,” said his mother, Karen. “When everything happened to Darius, there was a realization for Devin in terms of who are you going to be in life? Who’s going to get you through the tough times? I think he knows.”

Exactly nine years after Darius was shot, Syracuse hosted the defending the national champion Clemson Tigers on Oct. 13. Devin listened to “4 My Health,” before the game then recorded one tackle in the Orange’s 27-24 upset victory, while Darius sat in the Carrier Dome looking on. The brothers hugged afterward, mindful of the significance that night brought.

“I felt like it was a gift for me,” Darius said.

Published on November 24, 2017 at 2:29 pm

Contact Matthew: mguti100@syr.edu | @MatthewGut21