Mark Seay, Long Beach State's leading receiver, was shot while trying to shield a youngster during an apparent gang-related assault on a Halloween party, police said.
Seay, 21, was in fair condition Monday in the intensive care unit at Memorial Medical Center of Long Beach. A hospital spokesman said Seay would lose a kidney as a result of the Sunday night assault on the west Long Beach apartment he shared with his sister.A 17-year-old reputed Long Beach gang member was arrested for investigation of assault with a deadly weapon. An adult wanted in the investigation remained at large.
Police said the apartment was fired on at least twice.
According to neighbors and classmates who talked to the family, the trouble started when some people were asked to leave the party.
"We called the police the first time and they didn't come," said Mary Roseborough, Seay's sister. "They (the assailants) came back three times and shot at our house."
Juvenile Investigator Bob Laine said only that there had been some kind of "dispute earlier in the evening."
Laine said the athlete "was trying to protect a child" from an assailant who had walked up to an open window and fired a handgun into the dwelling.
Seay's action was "very admirable," Laine said. Considering the large number of people in the apartment, "it's just unbelievable that nobody else got hit. Thank God for that."
Doctors said a bullet penetrated Seay's buttocks and traveled through his liver, kidney and lung before lodging near his heart, police said.