PKT_VOL
Veni, Vidi, Vici
- Joined
- Jun 12, 2009
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Recruit decommits from Georgia Tech after alleged campus police harassment
I witnessed this from about 15-20 feet away. There was a student section which was practically empty. A recruit, his friend/brother, and his mom were sitting there not bothering a soul for the first half of the game. The family clearly had recruiting gear and credentials.
At a point during the second half, police started to check wristbands of the very few people who were actually in that section (mind you not checking our adjacent section, mostly full and also students). A cop, after throwing others out, gets to the family at top of the section. He starts to immediately harass the family. The recruit tries to explain that he is a recruit (guest of the university) and allowed to sit in the student section (to ironically soak in the terrible atmosphere).
The cop is dead set on them leaving. He doesn't care about the explanation; he was "just doing his job". The recruit, who is beyond frustrated at trying to explain the situation and total bewilderment of being throw out of a 90% empty section, began to reciprocate the attitude given to him by the cop. The cop attempts and fails to physically restrain the recruit.
At this point, a second officer who looked older and bit wiser stepped in. He told the first officer to back off. He proceeded to take a pen and paper out, and listened intently to their situation. Eventually, he led them away in an amicable manner (hopefully to the locker room).
The other ironic thing about this incident is that the wristband checking was precipitated by an obnoxious UGA fan. He ended up inadvertently trolling GT.
A little common sense, decency, and dismissal of rigid, tunnel vision rule-following when considering particular situations would have went a long way to resolving a misunderstanding at best and a mindnumbingly stupid harassment over nothing at worst.
I witnessed this from about 15-20 feet away. There was a student section which was practically empty. A recruit, his friend/brother, and his mom were sitting there not bothering a soul for the first half of the game. The family clearly had recruiting gear and credentials.
At a point during the second half, police started to check wristbands of the very few people who were actually in that section (mind you not checking our adjacent section, mostly full and also students). A cop, after throwing others out, gets to the family at top of the section. He starts to immediately harass the family. The recruit tries to explain that he is a recruit (guest of the university) and allowed to sit in the student section (to ironically soak in the terrible atmosphere).
The cop is dead set on them leaving. He doesn't care about the explanation; he was "just doing his job". The recruit, who is beyond frustrated at trying to explain the situation and total bewilderment of being throw out of a 90% empty section, began to reciprocate the attitude given to him by the cop. The cop attempts and fails to physically restrain the recruit.
At this point, a second officer who looked older and bit wiser stepped in. He told the first officer to back off. He proceeded to take a pen and paper out, and listened intently to their situation. Eventually, he led them away in an amicable manner (hopefully to the locker room).
The other ironic thing about this incident is that the wristband checking was precipitated by an obnoxious UGA fan. He ended up inadvertently trolling GT.
A little common sense, decency, and dismissal of rigid, tunnel vision rule-following when considering particular situations would have went a long way to resolving a misunderstanding at best and a mindnumbingly stupid harassment over nothing at worst.
