A college basketball game between Tuskegee University and Morehouse College ended with one of the head coaches in handcuffs and escorted off the floor by law enforcement.
According to ESPN reporting, Tuskegee coach Benjy Taylor was arrested following a post-game incident that still doesn’t make much sense. A video began circulating on social media showing Taylor involved in a heated exchange with a security officer. Taylor said that he was asking security for assistance with removing several Morehouse football players who were allegedly acting unruly and shouting “obscenities” at players and family members.
“I was simply trying to get the football team out of the handshake line as they were following right behind me and the team yelling obscenities! It was a very dangerous situation.”
Tuskegee athletic director Reginald Ruffin says that the security officer told police that Taylor was “very aggressive”.
“He asked the security officer, ‘Can you please remove them from the line?’ That’s what he asked the security officer,” Ruffin told HBCU Gameday.
Coach Taylor has hired civil rights attorney Harry Daniels to advise him on filing a lawsuit.
Source: MediaNews Group/Orange County Register via Getty Images / Getty
“I am at a loss for words, and I am upset about how I was violated and treated today,” Taylor said Saturday in a statement to multiple media outlets. “For my players, my family and people of Tuskegee to witness that is heartbreaking for me.
Daniels, defended his client’s honor and intentions in a public statement.
“Such behavior from the Morehouse football players, particularly their intermingling with the basketball players on the court and during the postgame handshake is prohibited by conference-mandated security protocols,” Daniels said in his statement. “When Coach Taylor asked two police officers to enforce those protocols attempting to diffuse an increasingly dangerous situation, however, one of the officers chose to place him in handcuffs and escort him from the court.”
We know that police officers are likely to abuse their power, but it’s always particularly disappointing to see Black cops power-trip on Black men. We will keep an eye on how this story continues to develop.
