Posted on 10/12/2013 2:28:33 PM PDT by BBell
COVINGTON, La. -- Two referees arrested during last night's St. Paul's vs. Mandeville game in Covington have now bonded out of the St. Tammany Parish Jail.
55-year-old Christopher Gambino of River Ridge and 54-year-old James Radcliffe of Metairie are both charged with one count of Public Intimidation for their involvement in an argument with Covington Police Officers during the third quarter of the game.
Both Radcliffe and Gambino are free today, after posting $5,000 signature bonds late last night.
According to police and witnesses, the incident began when the Chain Crew, the volunteers holding the yard markers at the game, got into an escalating verbal confrontation with spectators on the sideline. The Chain Crew was made up of St. Paul's supporters, the spectators were Mandeville supporters. According to witnesses, the Chain Crew asked the referees to move the spectators. The spectators said they were not in a restricted area and had permission to stand where they were standing.
When the referee began arguing with the spectators, Covington Police stepped in. According to witnesses, police officers told game officials they would control the crowd, and game officials should return to the game. A second game official then entered the now escalating argument with Covington Police.
According to Covington Police, the lead official then tried to throw an officer out of the game. Shortly afterwards, the two officials were taken away in a Covington Police squad car and booked into the St. Tammany Parish Jail.
Public Intimidation is generally a charge given in an incident where the offending party threatens to have a person fired over an incident, although exactly what was said between game officials and Covington Police is not immediately known.
The incident delayed play for roughly 25 minutes during the third quarter.
Stay with Eyewitness News and wwltv.com for continuing updates on this developing story.
You have to side with the neutral official rather than the local cops in such a case unless some other evidence arises. Really the cops involved should all be fired. They are at the game to help the official keep control not get mad at the officials like a fan. What an embarrassment for that police department.
All games are the state’s games, Citizen.
more importantly - who won?
Maybe the referees should have told the cops they were doing a very poor job of controlling the crowd, and then forfeit the game. What would those dip stick cops have done then?
You are right. That would have put a stop to the stupidity.
more importantly - who won?
****************
http://highschoolsports.nola.com/news/article/-5792481454061855496/st-pauls-uses-defense-ryan-okrepki-to-defeat-mandeville-20-3/#/0
snip
St. Paul’s used stifling defense to go along with near-perfect quarterback play
from Ryan O’Krepki, and the Wolves won their 32nd consecutive district game, 20-3,
at Hunter Field. Paired with Covington’s 33-24 loss to Ponchatoula, the Wolves are
in a familiar place: all alone at the top of District 6-5A.
The Wolves (4-2, 3-0) stuffed Mandeville quarterback Glen Cuiellette, a Tulane commitment,
for five sacks, including two by Nick Blaise. On the passes he actually got off, he didn’t
fare much better, going 9-of-26 passing for 198 yards and three interceptions.
end snip
The refs control all aspects of the game including an unruly crowd. As a former HS ref, unruly crowds are the responsibility of the head coach for that side. All the lead ref had to do was declare a sideline error.
If the coach refuses to obey the ref, the coach is ejected. A 3rd sideline error is a forfeit for that team.
There were several instances where the police were called due to unruly crowds or coaches. The cops MUST obey the refs.
They never did say what kind of game it was, but my guess is football, because they resumed the game after the third quarter. Sports, Politics and Religion (and maybe The Weather)are three items on a short list of topics that middle aged men world over still ‘get crazy’ about. I’m also guessing it’s at a high school. Don’t most middle school coaches tend to be younger? At least it used to be that way.
but shouldn’t the “chain crew” be professional enough to not engage hecklers from the stands?
A better solution would be to ban that visiting school to play any ore games for the rest of the season. High school football is not important to die over, except in certain parts of Texas, from what I hear.
but shouldn’t the “chain crew” be professional enough to not engage hecklers from the stands?
************
Hopefully that would be so but remember we are dealing with volunteers from the attendees.
snip from the article posted.....
the incident began when the Chain Crew, the volunteers holding the yard markers at the game
I think visiting teams can forfeit games too. See post 8.
The visiting team could forfeit, but since security is the responsibility of the home team and the local police were failing at their responsibility in the opinion of the officials, the officials could have rightly forfeited the game against the home team. Then let those idiot cops live in the town where they cost their home team a forfeit. That would be the end of that.
Down here in St Pete FL a while back the organist got tossed bythe umps for playing three bind mice. Double A ball has only three umps. The guy had to physically leave the ballpark.
Nope. The chain crew is under the specific direction of the linesman ref. They are directed before the game starts not to talk to anyone and keep their mouths shut.
Any screw up w the chains has a profound impact on the game.
Wonder they didn’t shoot the mascot.
Yep. One of the cops was ticked off that his son’s team was losing. Apparently the game officials were trying to move people back from the chain crew to make the game safe and the moron cops said they couldn’t do that.
I talked to a friend of mine over there tonight and he had heard the arrests happened after one official threw one of the cops out of the game. BTW, officials have the authority to throw anyone in attendance out of the game.
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