BREAKING NEWS: Officers who hit fans at Florida-Georgia game were ‘within policy,’ sheriff says

Officers who hit fans at Florida-Georgia game were ‘within policy,’ sheriff says
The Jacksonville Sheriff’s Office released body camera video from officers involved in at least two separate clashes with fans ejected by stadium security.

Body camera video of altercations between officers and fans at the weekend’s University of Florida vs. University of Georgia football game proves the officers did no wrong, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said.

“Yes, there was force used,” Waters said Tuesday afternoon at a news conference at which the video was shown. “And yes, that force is always ugly. [It] does not mean it was unlawful or contrary to policy.”

Waters said context was largely missing in the two cases in which cellphone video of officers striking people with a fist or a baton during the raucous game between historic rivals went viral on social media.

Waters said some of what happened in Saturday’s second incident was cut from cellphone video to make it “intentionally misleading.” It was circulated by those who wish to “advance an anti-police agenda,” he said.

Videos of that incident were posted to X by Tate Moore of the sports news platform Barstool Sports and by a person named John Phillips. The Phillips account also posted video of the first confrontation. Barstool Sports and a Floridian with the same name as Phillips did not immediately respond to emailed requests seeking their response Monday night.

A statement accompanying the airing of body camera video described the video and commentary by sheriff’s officials Monday as “important context” that includes “additional details regarding two incidents from Saturday’s game.”

Four men in the two incidents were arrested on allegations of battery on an officer, resisting arrest, trespassing and disorderly intoxication, according to sheriff’s incident reports.

A sheriff’s incident report identified them as father-and-son duo Michael Wayne Long, 58, and Alexander Michael Long, 27, both of Orange Park, Florida. The two other men were identified as Brandon Michael Boley, 42, of Fleming Island, Florida, and Walter Brown, 39, of Callahan, Florida.

Three of the four did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday night, and Brown could not be reached. Brown was listed in his incident report as having been “absentee booked” on the allegations. None of the men were in jail Monday night, according to the reports.

The video from two officers in the first incident, whom the sheriff’s office identified as D.J. Bowers and E.D. Kelly, provided different views of a confrontation with Brown shortly after 4:20 p.m., after a “safe worker” at EverBank Stadium in Jacksonville told him to leave, Sheriff’s Cmdr. Jacob Vorpahl said at Monday’s news conference.

Brown was ejected after a confrontation with the worker, whom he accused of trying to kidnap his children, Vorpahl said. The children had tried to reach a seating section of the stadium without tickets, Vorpahl said.

Brown arrived and is alleged to have pushed the worker and then dragged one child to the section while telling the others to follow, said Vorpahl, who is in charge of the office’s accountability section. That prompted the safe worker to ask officers to remove Brown.

Authorities allege he refused to leave when two sheriff’s officers arrived.

The man fended off multiple attempts by the officers to grab his wrists and one attempt to put handcuffs on his right wrist before one of the officers started striking him, apparently with a closed fist, and then used a stun gun at least three times, the body camera video shows.

The officers wrestled with Brown before they got him into custody, body camera video shows. The sheriff’s office said in a series of posts on X that the man grabbed an officer’s gun during the confrontation.

Brown also made at least two threats, according to the video.

“Remember, I told you either I’m going to kill a cop or not leave,” he said after he turned to a companion at the beginning of the confrontation. “One or the other.”

Sheriff’s officials also said at the news conference that the suspect repeatedly used a racial epithet against one of the two officers, who is Black.

The man was taken to a facility at the stadium to be treated for lacerations to his face, according to the video and sheriff’s officials.

In the second incident, which took place after 6 p.m., multiple officers were summoned to a section of the stadium where three allegedly unruly fans were ejected but refused to exit, the body camera video shows.

As officers try to pull two men from their seating area, an altercation breaks out with both simultaneously, the video shows. A man in a striped polo shirt is taken down by officers, at least one of whom strikes him, according to video and audio, with the man repeatedly saying, “Don’t swing.”

The other man puts a hand in an officer’s face and then put his arms around the officer’s waist, close to his gun belt, as the two struggle, the body camera video shows. That initial part of the confrontation, Waters said, was left out of cellphone video.

That officer resorted to striking the fan multiple times, the sheriff’s video shows, and at least one other spectator joined in to help officers get control of the situation.

The sheriff’s office identified three officers involved in the confrontation: Sgt. J.S. Beasley and Officers A.M. Catino and J. Anthony.

Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 5-30, the bargaining unit for Jacksonville officers, did not immediately respond late Monday to a request seeking comment from the five officers named as being involved in the two incidents.

Spectators had gathered Saturday to watch the Florida Gators taken on the Georgia Bulldogs, an annual matchup that drew an estimated 70,000 people to EverBank Stadium in downtown Jacksonville.

The crowd was rowdy, even for a game that Waters said was known as “America’s largest outdoor cocktail party.” He said he arrived sometime after noon to find many fans were “already inebriated, before the game even started.”

“This was a different game,” Waters said. “They’re not always like this. We had a horse punched in the face.”

Waters said six officers assigned to the game were injured, eight people were arrested, and 35 fans were ejected.

The game’s general atmosphere was overshadowed by the social media videos.

Jacksonville Mayor Donna Deegan described the videos on X as “disturbing” and added that she spoke to the sheriff about the matter. The sheriff’s office said the matter was under investigation.

Waters said the sheriff’s office has received threats against one of two Black officers seen on social media video. “I don’t need context, n—–,” the threat said, according to Waters, who described a racial epithet used in the communication.

“I’m getting ready to start putting bullets in them,” he said, quoting the threat.

In sheriff’s body camera video of the first incident, the suspect used the same word, Vorpahl said at the news conference.

“We had to censor some of the words that were said,” he said.
Dennis Romero