JAY REEVES
Associated Press

OPELIKA, Ala. (AP) — Police say they walked into a bloody, chaotic scene the night two former Auburn University football players and another man were shot to death at a party.

The officers testified Friday as the trial opened for the man charged in the killings, 24-year-old Desmonte Leonard.

Police described getting reports of multiple gunshots at an apartment clubhouse on June 9, 2012, and arriving to find one former player dead in a flower bed.

Another man was dead on a sidewalk, and a third man was fighting for life in a pool of blood.

Prosecutors told jurors in opening statements that Leonard began shooting after a verbal dispute escalated into a fistfight.

The defense concedes Leonard was the gunman but says he fired in self-defense. They’re citing Alabama’s “stand your ground” law.

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