Posted on 09/01/2011 1:28:16 PM PDT by Mount Athos
The Sheriff's Office is wrapping up its investigation of the youth football brawl that was captured on videotape last weekend, and expects to announce any charges on Friday.
The investigation has centered on four suspects who took part in the melee; sheriff's Col. Steve Burns says all four of them have provided statements to law enforcement and are "cooperating."
The video shows that aggressors in the fight were mainly coaches and players from the Sarasota Gators football team.
The coach of the other team on the field Saturday, Mike Cody of the North Port Husky's, on Thursday called it a "very disgraceful display of coaching and mentoring to young men and women," the worst he has seen in 24 years of coaching.
Several Husky's coaches can be seen trying to break up the fight in the video. Cody can also be seen in the video, calling 911 on his cell phone.
"I feel like our people did the best they could do in the situation they were put in," Cody said. Earlier
The referee who was assaulted by youth football coaches and players at a Saturday game told detectives he did not want to press charges.
Referee Jayme Ream, 41, signed a waiver of prosecution as the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office began to investigate the attack that occurred at an afternoon game between the Sarasota Gators and the North Port Huskies at Riverview High School.
However, authorities can still decide to pursue battery charges without Ream and the Sheriff's Office has announced they have identified four suspects.
Col. Steve Burns will hold a press conference at 1:15 p.m. to update the investigation.
Attacking an athletic official is a felony in Florida.
The fight that quickly turned into a mob scene was apparently over a disputed call in the game among the two junior teams ages 13 and 14.
A video captured by a parent in the stands shows Gator coaches first throwing water bottles at the referees and then an unidentified parent or coach walking onto the field toward Ream.
According to a Sheriff's report, Ream says an unnamed suspect threw him to the ground.
The suspect, who said Ream was being unfair to his team, told deputies that Ream pushed him first.
Then a player in full gear, and presumably 13 or 14 years old, is seen in the video rushing through the field and tackling Ream.
Ream has not responded to multiple calls for comment. EARLIER
It started with a disputed call, followed by some disgruntled coaches throwing water bottles at the referees.
What happened next, captured on video and now being investigated by authorities, is shocking: more than a dozen youth football coaches and players attacking at least one referee, including a player in full gear except for his helmet flying into a referee and tackling him to the ground.
Felony charges could follow an investigation into what happened Saturday — and who did what — during the game between the age 13-14 junior teams of the Sarasota Gators and North Port Huskies played at Riverview High School.
The investigation will be easier for authorities since the fight was videotaped by someone in the stands and turned over to the Sheriff's Office.
Debbie Ismail, a "team mom" whose son Adam plays for the Huskies pee wee team, was just feet away from the melee.
Ismail said the fight started minutes before halftime over some disputed calls, and the coaches from the Gators started throwing water bottles at the referees.
"I was shocked," Ismail said. "I looked at the children to see the expressions on their faces. They were horrified."
She added: "This is not what football is about."
The fight gave Ismail an anxiety attack, and for her son Adam, it was "terrifying" to witness.
"I felt really bad for the ref that got beat up," he said.
Ismail said the referee was taken away in an ambulance.
"The video speaks for itself," Sarasota County Sheriff's Col. Steve Burns said. "It was disturbing."
"I saw adults, entrusted in a mentoring position with the youth of our community, acting and behaving in a manner that is absolutely unacceptable," Burns said.
At the game, the video shows a coach or parent confronting a referee who was walking out of the end zone.
Punches were thrown between the two men, who started grappling, until a Gator player wearing the number 6 dives in and levels the referee. The boy then celebrates his hit on the official, the video shows.
As another referee tries to protect the referee on the ground, other Gators coaches, players and fans swarm the field, and one man appears to try to kick the grounded referee in the head.
The referee gets up and scampers away, but the fight continues. The whole scene lasts just over two minutes.
Attacking an athletic official is a felony in Florida.
At least two or three people would be facing felony charges, Burns said. Investigators now are identifying individuals in the footage and interviewing them.
Burns would not say if the player who tackled the referee would face charges.
"Obviously, he's not getting a real good mentor from his role model, his coaching staff," Burns said.
No one was hospitalized as a result of the fight, the Sheriff's Office said.
Sarasota County School District spokesman Scott Ferguson said the Gators league has been banned from playing on school district fields.
Derrick Timmons, a Sarasota Gators coach for a separate age group, said he was advised by the league's attorney not to speak about the incident, but said the league is trying to put it behind them.
"I don't want nothing to get twisted, so I'm not going to say anything," he said. "We all know what happened. Whatever anybody from North Port tells you ain't true. That's all I have to say about that."
Timmons said the Gators are divided into five age groups, ranging from 4 to 14. The age group involved in the incident caught on tape was 13- and 14-year-olds.
Timmons, who coaches the 11 to 12 age group, said he was at the game but did not see the incident first-hand.
"Believe me, if you saw the tape, it's a big deal," he said. "It doesn't show everything though. It doesn't show what led up to it. That's why I don't want to talk about it because it doesn't show everything. Basically at the end of it it's going to be he said this and she said that."
The group that oversees the Gators and other youth football leagues may expel the entire Gators group, said James Hogan, president of the Middle Florida Football and Cheerleading Conference.
Hogan said the conference has already suspended the team involved and expelled four people identified as having participated in the fight. Hogan said those expelled included coaches and children but could not get more specific.
Wednesday night, the conference members met to decide if they will suspend the Gators. Hogan said it was likely even more people involved will be expelled.
Hogan said he saw the video on YouTube over the weekend and was especially upset that adult coaches appeared to be involved.
"We're about the kids and were going to see what's in the best interest for all those teams and the kids," Hogan said.
The feral behavior of people never ceases to amaze me. My son got a penalty in the last game and I told him to suck it up. Too many people think their little tit-sucker can do no wrong and every time they break a rule, the Man is out to get them.
The worst sport for it is soccer.
feral ghetto thugs....
I am beginning to figure out...that maybe...just maybe Jim Crow laws were necessarily in place to keep decent black folk down...BUT INSTEAD it was likely in place to protect CIVIL people from FERAL behavior that seems to KEEP...erupting in public...time and time again!
what is WRONG with these feral people????
Last week in Philly there was a late-night bb game, at half-time a drug-dealer came casually loping across the court and emptied his pistol into the bleachers, wounding SIX people.
500 people saw this and HOW MANY witnesses helped responding police?
ZERO —NO ONE saw anything....!
How can you help these people? You can’t.
Somehow....
the whole Jim Crow thing....
looks like it had “some” merit....
it certainly DID protect CIVIL people from the “ferals”...
running to the ‘burbs...ain’t working....
the government just packs up the ferals and PLOPS them into a government owned home in the burbs and calls it “Section 8”... and “diversity”...
Funnt how the blacks are “trained” by the thugs to see nothing and say nothing...and the government and police have punished whitei into submission and leave us chattering among ourselves embarressed to say...
that MOST of black America is ACTING POORLY...from Obama to Maxine to Rev Wright to .......
LIST THEM!
your eyes can SEE!
speak out you chicken shit whites!
the Uncle Toms KNOW WE ARE RIGHT!
the Uncle Toms are whith us!
the Uncle TOMS are victims of this violent feral shit too!
“My son got a penalty in the last game..”
It is part of the learning process for a sport. Yes, the ref’s can make a bad call or not see a violation but the kid’s learn a valuable life lesson. That being, you suck it up, play harder and better and you don’t let the calls make you lose focus on your goals. The worst thing you can do is let anger take over because then you’ve lost your focus.
Looks like a little unofficial practice time for the weekend flash mob adventure!
Whites' patience is wearing very thin. You can see it in the comments sections of newspapers across the country. Things are being stated in these comments that were unimaginable just a few years ago.
Blogs are popping up daily documenting and venting about Black dysfunction and pathology. The MSM has lost control of the narrative due to the internet.
It will not be pleasant for Blacks if White anger boils over and we have to come in again and fix this problem for them.
I just wish they'd wake up.
It's not something I'm predicting will happen, but folks who live near or own property near large black populations should definitely have a plan in case there is some civil upheaval.
I live in Chicago, so I'm sending the wife and kids out to her parents in the far burbs, and I'll stay behind to watch the house with my neighbor Mr. Benelli. As for my other properties, I'll probably make out better with the insurance.
All these Black men attacking a white ref?
This is yet another display of diversity hate in action. That White boy needs to be put in his place...
The Ref is doing all kids and parents a disservice if he is given the power to not prosecute this racial mob attack on the football field. If they don’t get it handled Black racists will turn every game into a lynching mob scene.
A bunch of African Americans attacking a white guy in that special way they have. You know, where about twenty black guys attack a single white person? Nothing hateful or criminal about it.
***The feral behavior of people never ceases to amaze me.****
I suppose in the next games, if the referee sees a foul, he will “Let the wookies win!”
*****A bunch of African Americans attacking a white guy in that special way they have. You know, where about twenty black guys attack a single white person? ******
Nothing new. I remember the chant us kids would say sixty years ago when several piled on one person.
“THREE against one is n****r fun!”
Now it’s 20 to 1!
Their number one reason for carrying guns is fear of being attacked by Blacks.
I often have two guns with me, one in my pocket (a Ruger 380) and one (a 30 shot Ruger 9mm) on the seat of my truck.
We are all legal and have permits.
52yo f...CCL
.40 sig sauer automobile
Ruger LCP 380 on my person at all times...
5 other nice assortment of handguns
snake charmer shotgun
crossbow...
some are more ready than others...
wake up white folk...you REALLY think these people are going to act better when their guy is going to get booted out of the white house????
think again...and they WON’T be asking for whitie’s voting card...to see if you are a white liberal...they will ASSUME all whites are tea party people...
mark my words...
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