ROSEVILLE, Mich. -- Zurlon Tipton, a former Indianapolis Colts running back, has died after accidentally shooting himself at a car dealership in suburban Detroit. He was 26.Brian Taylor, a spokesman at Detroits St. John Hospital, confirmed Tiptons death Tuesday. Police say he was handling a duffel bag when a gun in the bag fired as he dropped off his car in Roseville.Tipton appeared in 16 games over two seasons for the Colts, gaining 38 yards on 15 carries. He was released by the team in December.Zurlon was a dude you rooted for -- an undrafted, talented, hardworking player who always seemed to have a smile on his face. His personality was contagious, Colts long snapper Matt Overton told ESPNs Mike Wells.He will always be our brother. He is family, Overton added. Today is a tough day for many. Prayers go out to his family during this difficult time.The Detroit native played college football at Central Michigan. Tiptons best season was 2012 when he scored 19 touchdowns and rushed for nearly 1,500 yards. Injuries limited him to only five games in 2013, his senior season.CMU says the death is shocking and tragic.Tipton was arrested in another incident allegedly involving a gun early last Christmas morning. According to the Greenwood (Indiana) Police Department, Tipton allegedly fired one round from an AR-15 assault weapon at 1 a.m. outside a suburban Indianapolis home and was charged with criminal recklessness with a deadly weapon.The Associated Press contributed to this report. Wholesale Air Max Shoes . Rinne played two periods in his first game since left hip surgery in early May. Gabriel Bourque scored 3:07 into the second period and Austin Watson tallied 5:15 later for Nashville. Cheap Air Max Wholesale . A big centre with all the tools to be an elite player, Johansen paced the Blue Jackets with a standout game Saturday night. He had a goal and two assists for a career-high three points as Columbus beat the New York Islanders 5-2 to snap a five-game losing streak. http://www.airmaxchinacheap.com/ . On Mar. 16, coming off a "fight of the year" performance at UFC 154 the previous November, St-Pierre faced Nick Diaz at UFC 158 in what would be his eighth defence of the welterweight title. Using his superior athleticism, St-Pierre cruised to a five round, unanimous decision victory setting up a much-anticipated title defence against number one contender Johny Hendricks. Cheap Authentic Air Max . The formidable trio of Canadian receivers -- individually known as Chris Getzlaf, Rob Bagg and Andy Fantuz -- will share the field at Mosaic Stadium one more time on Sunday. Cheap Air Max China . Walcott is available for Saturdays home match against Southampton as Arsenal looks to extend its two-point lead at the top of the Premier League. The Gunners are currently the second highest scorers in the league but Wenger insists Walcott will add something extra to his team. HARTFORD, Conn. -- The expulsion of two college athletes on sexual misconduct grounds highlights a little-known facet of the latitude schools are given when investigating such cases: They can mete out punishment even in the absence of a complaint from the alleged victim.Former Yale University basketball captain Jack Montague and former Colorado State-Pueblo football player and wrestler Grant Neal both filed federal lawsuits this year over their expulsions, alleging their schools mishandled information that originated with someone other than the alleged victim.There is no real complainant, said attorney Andrew Miltenberg, who represents Neal and has been the lawyer for about 100 men accused of sexual assaults on campuses. There is no victim making the charge. There is the school acting on some sort of hearsay or information.Neal was suspended after a woman reported to school authorities that her friend had been assaulted. According to the lawsuit, both Neal and the alleged victim said the sex was consensual, but the woman said she stopped the encounter at one point because Neal wasnt wearing a condom and then resumed it after he put one on.Montague was expelled after a friend of the woman involved in his case went to a school official who ensures Yales compliance with Title IX, the federal law designed to prevent sexual discrimination in education.The lawsuit alleges the Title IX officer brought the complaint more than a year after the incident and despite being told the woman did not believe Montague heard her when she tried to end their sexual encounter. The victim eventually cooperated only after the Title IX officer informed her that Montague had previously received counseling after an incident involving another woman, according to the lawsuit.The lawsuit alleges the school didnt tell her that case involved him shoving a paper plate down someones shirt following a drunken argument outside a pizza parlor.Both athletes say the sexual encounters were entirely consensual, and neither was ever charged with a crime. But in both cases, the schools acted after finding that a preponderance of the evidence indicated sexual misconduct more likely took place than didnt.Thats a much lower standard than the beyond a reasonable doubt standard of the criminal justice system.Schools have been using the preponderance standard since receiving a Dear Colleague letter in 2001 from the Department of Educations Office for Civil Rights, outlining how they should handle sexual misconduct allegations. It warned that schools that fail to promptly investigate allegations of sexual assault and harassment, even if the accuser does not make a complaint to the institution, can face a loss of federal money.Miltenberg, Neals attorney, said that raises questions about whether schools are trying to conduct fair investigations or making examples out of high-profile defendants to appease the Office for Civil Rights.Even at the schools with the greatest of endowments, like a Yale, the threat of taking away federal ffunding is significant, he said.ddddddddddddKC Johnson, a professor at Brooklyn College who has written extensively on how schools handle sexual assault allegations, said the threat of an OCR investigation into a university also is powerful motivation for the institutions to be aggressive and err on the side of punishing the accused.Schools are not capable of dealing with situations like this very well, he said. Its hard to fairly be a prosecutor, an investigator and a juror simultaneously.He said thats why schools including Yale have a policy of having its Title IX officer bring cases in the absence of a victim complaint only in extraordinary circumstances, such as when there is an acute risk to the community. He said its not clear that either of these cases meet that threshold.Beth Hamilton, the director of prevention and programs at the Connecticut Alliance to End Sexual Violence, defends the preponderance standard as appropriate in a college setting.Schools dont have the forensic tools and other resources necessary to conduct a police-style investigation of every report and cant force people to testify, she said.Discipline from a school is often appropriate, she said, whether the conduct rises to the level of a crime or not.The worst that a university can do is expel a student from their institution, she said. The criminal justice process should have a higher standard, because the worst thing that can happen is you can incarcerate somebody.But Johnson points out that being expelled could cost Montague millions of dollars over the course of his life, prevent him from getting a job and leave him labeled for life as a rapist.Yale called its investigation of the Montague case, and its process for investigating allegations, thorough and fair.Only about one out of 10 cases has ended in expulsion, and the decision to expel a student has been made only after the most careful consideration, based on the facts and, when appropriate, disciplinary history, the school said in a statement.Cora Zaletel, a spokeswoman for Colorado State-Pueblo, said the school would not comment because of the litigation.Its unusual for a victim to not want to participate in the process, or even to not understand that what happened to them was misconduct, said Viktoria Kristiansson, a former prosecutor who now works as a consultant for AEquitas, a group that advises schools and prosecutors on cases involving violence against women.She would not comment on the specifics of the Yale and Pueblo cases. But, she said, schools dont have any choice but to investigate and act on allegations, no matter their genesis.The reason we have these various options for reporting is because the goal of having these systems in place is to keep communities safe, she said. Whether these reports are coming from the victims themselves or society, we should hope that these are always going to be looked into. ' ' '