Suspect in shooting death of Sacramento high school football coach Greg Grimes arrested in NC

A suspect in the July 4, 2022, shooting that killed former Sacramento football star Greg Najee Grimes was arrested Tuesday, one month after the case was featured on the TV show “America’s Most Wanted.”

Tahje Akhalid Michael, 29, was being held in the Cumberland County, North Carolina, detention center on a hold from California, online jail records show and the Sacramento Police Department announced.

Sacramento police say Michael, who had been a fugitive since the shooting at 16th and L streets that killed Grimes and wounded four others, was arrested in Fayetteville, North Carolina, after 19 months as a fugitive.

“Despite the exhaustive efforts by our investigators, Tahje Michael remained elusive until a breakthrough collaboration with ‘America’s Most Wanted’ and the U.S. Marshal’s Service provided the necessary resources to locate him in Fayetteville,” police said.

Sacramento Police Chief Kathy Lester said in a statement that Michael’s arrest “marks a significant milestone in the pursuit of justice for the victim and his family.”

Grimes’ mother, Deborah, told The Sacramento Bee that the family learned of the arrest Tuesday morning in a call from Detective Scot Krutz and that she never doubted the suspect would be found.

“Absolutely, 100 percent once we did ‘America’s Most Wanted’,” Grimes’ mother said. “We knew their reputation.

“We knew the pursuit that would take place. We had absolutely no doubt. And, also, Sac PD was doggedly pursuing this and the lead detective would not let it go, so we knew, we had every confidence that this was going to happen.”

Police did not release details of Michael’s arrest or his background. Online Sacramento Superior Court records list felony charges from 2021 and 2023 but gave no details on the specific charges.

The 2021 case appears to involve a domestic violence case, with the last entry from October 2022 showing Michael failed to appear for completion of a batterers treatment program.

Grimes had been a football star at Inderkum High School and Boise State University who had returned to coach at his high school after college. He also worked with special education children and began a staffing firm seven months before the shooting. He was in the process of purchasing a home when he was killed.

Grimes was shot after leaving the Mix Downtown nightclub as he was waiting for a street light to change, his mother said.

She added that her son did not know Michael, but that he had featured him on an Instagram video taken inside the club as Michael and other clubgoers were showing off their wristwatches for the video.

“This was a guy who was at the scene that my son was at,” she said. “There was no altercation or anything such as that.

“My son was showing him love as far as highlighting what a beautiful watch the guy had. It was on my son’s last Instagram story, where he’s giving him all kinds of props. That’s actually on the very last Instagram story that my son did, and then a few minutes later this guy shot him.”

Deborah Grimes said friends who were nearby at the time of the shooting followed her son’s ambulance and reported the shooter was on the Instagram page.

“We knew his name before my son was off the operating table,” she said. “The reason was because of the Instagram.”

Despite that, Michael was able to evade police until Tuesday, and Deborah Grimes said her husband, Gregory, went to pick up Grimes’ 6-year-old son from school Tuesday to let him know an arrest had been made.

Jaceyon, or “Ace” as the family calls him, was 4 at the time his father was killed and is now a 6-year-old budding athlete who plays football, basketball and runs track as a first-grader, Deborah Grimes said.

She said Ace says he wants to make his father proud of his athletic endeavors.

“Ace is, of course, traumatized,” she said, adding that he wears a football-shaped pendant that contains some of his dad’s ashes and is engraved with one of Greg Grimes’ slogans: “That’s my boy.”

“What’s so amazing about that little boy is he’s extremely resilient,” she said. “He talks about his daddy every single day in the most positive, uplifting ways.

“He remembers movies they watched together, places they went together, food they ate together, because we constantly show him videos and pictures. He’s in love with his daddy, but there’s times that he’s crying and saying how much he’s missing his daddy and that it’s unfair that everybody else has a daddy.”

Grimes’ mother said that once Michael is returned to California to face charges the family will be present in court.

“Every time,” she said. “We’ll be the first ones there.”