The 31-year-old former Inderkum High School and Boise State University football star returned to coaching at his high school after college and worked with special education kids until last December, when he started a staffing firm and began planning the rest of his life.
“He was really, really excited as soon as I made it,” his mother, Deborah, said of her only son with her husband, Gregory Grimes. “He was in escrow closing on a new house last week, just paid off his student loans last week, just paid off his car last week.”
And he was looking forward to a special Fourth of July celebration for his 4-year-old son, Jaceyon, or “Ace,” making sure his mother had the exact fireworks on Sunday for his son to enjoy.
Grimes never made it to that celebration. Instead, he was killed early Monday as he left the Mix Downtown nightclub at 16th and L streets when gunfire erupted outside and he was hit with three bullets in the chest, his mother said. Four other people were injured in early morning shootings.
in 2008, at age 17, Greg Grimes, a senior at Inderkum High School, was considered one of the fastest rising recruits in the area. Grimes was shot and killed outside a nightclub at 16th and L streets in downtown Sacramento on Monday, July 4, 2022. Kevin German Sacramento Bee File
“He went down the stairs and waited for the others to come out,” his mother said. “He called one of the friends twice, but because they were going down the stairs they didn’t answer.
“And then they heard the shots and when they got to the door they saw him on the ground. They said he was having a great time. There were no confrontations. Everyone was just having a great time. They were just celebrating that it would be the 4th of July.”
Grimes was taken to UC Davis Medical Center, where doctors worked to save him while his friends and family gathered and hoped for the best, his mother said.
“They worked on him for about 20 minutes trying to do CPR and then when they got to the hospital they tried harder to revive him,” she said. “They broke open his chest cavity to try and massage his heart, so he was really trying. He was taken to surgery but regained consciousness. He did not make it.
“We had no idea. We didn’t expect what they would say. We thought they’d say, “Okay, he got shot and asked his parents to come over.” This is what we expected. We did not know.”
In 2007, Inderkum High School’s Greg Grimes was a first-team linebacker on The Bee’s All-Metro football team. Grimes was shot and killed outside a nightclub at 15th and L streets in downtown Sacramento early Monday. Renee T. Bonnafon Sacramento Bee Archive
Grimes was the victim of a shooting in 2017
Grimes had already survived a previous shooting at a city nightclub in 2017, when gunman Adrian Calderon shot Grimes in the neck and wounded a security guard at the Parlare Euro Lounge. Calderon was convicted and sentenced in 2019 to 35 years and four months in prison, according to Bee records.
But Grimes’ mother said she does not believe her son was targeted Monday.
“He’s never been on the streets or anything, he doesn’t have that kind of background,” he said. “You would never think someone like him would be murdered. He just doesn’t fit the profile of a troublemaker or anything like that.
Greg Grimes, center, celebrates signing a letter of intent at Inderkum High School on Wednesday, Feb. 6, 2008, to attend Boise State. Grimes was fatally shot outside a downtown nightclub at 16th and L streets early Monday. Randy Pench Sacramento Bee Archive
“His former high school coach Terry Stark just called on the intercom, he’s just in tears, he’s broken,” he said.
Another coach, Todd Hamasaki, shared the disbelief at the loss.
“He was an amazing coach and role model for so many kids and he wanted to do what he did – coach,” Hamasaki said.
Grimes was already grieving the loss of his close friend, Giovanni “DJ Gio” Pizano, who was killed in an April shooting along with another man in Sacramento’s Natomas Crossing neighborhood.
“I can’t explain how devastating this is right now,” Grimes’ mother said. “It’s extremely surreal. He was just grieving for his friend DJ Gio.”
Grimes leaves behind a 4-year-old son
Grimes shared custody of his son with the boy’s mother, and the family had not yet told the boy as of Monday morning what happened to his father, who is described as a loving father.
“His son just finished T-ball, that was his first team sport,” Deborah Grimes said. “His son was getting ready to start kindergarten in August. It turns 5 next month, and it was all a big deal, it was all a big deal. She wanted to see him play Pop Warner. He was thrilled that his son was able to turn 5 and play football.”
Grimes came from a football background. His father was a tight end for the University of Washington Huskies for coach Don James’ teams in the 1970s, and Deborah Grimes said her son wanted to be just like him.
Grimes, known as Najee to his parents and Greg to his friends, was Inderkum High’s first scholarship player in any sport and regularly visited and talked with teachers and students throughout his college days where he played defensive tackle and appeared in two Fiestas. Bol.
Lineman Greg Grimes of Inderkum looks back at friends as he stands on the sidelines at a summer camp at Inderkum High in 2007. Grimes died after being shot outside a nightclub at 16th and L streets in downtown Sacramento early Monday. Sacramento Bee file Greg Najee Grimes, left, works with Inderkum High School football players in 2021. Grimes, 31, a former Boise State University football star who had returned home was shot and killed Monday, July 4, 2022, outside Mix Downtown nightclub in Sacramento. Inderkum High School
“He was an academic All-American at Boise, but he also graduated with honors and was the first student-athlete at Inderkum to win a scholarship,” he said. “Everything was first team. He has many distinctions.”
His mother said he remained close to his Boise State teammates, including several who went on to NFL careers.
“He’s got friends all over the NFL that he’s just stayed close with, and when I say close I mean they send their kids Christmas presents,” he said. “In the hospital were friends with whom he went to kindergarten. His friends are friends, they stay friends, they all stay close.
“It’s like glue, it holds a lot of other people together.”
Grimes was also particularly close to his parents, visiting their home four to five days a week, his mother said.
“He’s very much a mummy and daddy’s boy because he’s our only child,” she said. “She has a flower subscription so she can send me flowers randomly. He’s just pure.”
Sacramento police investigate the scene of a shooting outside the Mix nightclub at 16th and L streets in downtown Sacramento on Monday. It was the second mass shooting at a downtown entertainment venue in three months. Lezlie Sterling [email protected]
Deborah Grimes said she hopes someone from the public will respond to Sacramento police’s appeals for information about the shooting. Police tweeted a QR code that allows witnesses to the event to submit video to help investigators.
“We’re both really praying that somebody will say something about the shooter,” Deborah Grimes said, adding that she last spoke with her son Sunday night.
“He just Facetimed me last night at about 10:30 and was telling me about how excited he was to be at the fireworks today with his son,” she said. “We got his son to collect the fireworks, so we said, ‘Yeah, we got them all, we got what you wanted.
“He’s just a very involved father.”
Joe Davidson of The Bee contributed to this story.
Greg Najee Grimes, center, works with Inderkum High School football players in 2021. Grimes, 31, a former Boise State University football star who had returned…
