General

UPDATE: UGA Football Player Was Reportedly Peacemaker in Taxi Incident

Apr 1, 2010, 9:15 PM UTC

â†µâ†µAPRIL 5 UPDATE: Late today police are saying the following regarding the taxi incident, via the AJC:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥Athens-Clarke County police said this afternoon that University of Georgia football players were not the offenders in a March 28 incident in which four men allegedly threatened and hit a married couple in an Athens taxi van.â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“One football player was in the taxi, but the investigation revealed he acted as a peace maker and tried to calm the situation,” Athens police said in a statement. “The other males have been identified as residents of Heard County and warrants are pending. Additional information will be released when the warrants are issued.”â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥Athens police had been investigating the incident since the couple filed a report last Tuesday. According to the report, the male victim had said the men were UGA football players.â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µWe’ll continue to update this on Tuesday if there is more news on who the peacemaking player was.â†µ

â†µâ†µOriginal Post: It’s April Fool’s Day and it’s the afternoon so by now you have had it beaten into your head that anything surprising or weird going on today is a damn dirty lie. But we’re pretty sure this is legit: a couple on the Georgia campus gets into a cab late on March 29th and is joined by four “individuals who knew the cab driver.” The individuals have bratwursts. â†µ

â†µâ†µIt is at this point that someone in the vicinity of Brent Borganmeister made the worst mistake of his life: â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥A male victim then commented on the bratwursts, saying they smelledâ‡¥good, and he asked how much they cost.â‡¥â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥One of the individuals then responded, “Shut up you stupid whiteâ‡¥racist,” according to the report.â‡¥â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µAfter this there was some slapping and increasingly hostile verbal battery, including “turn around if you want to live”, and associated comments about how the woman should have sex with the not very nice people in the back seat. They even hit a lady:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥After one of the individuals struck the male again, his wifeâ‡¥reportedly turned around and told them to stop. One of the passengersâ‡¥then slapped the wife.â‡¥â†µâ‡¥
â†µâ‡¥â†µâ‡¥“It was an open-handed slap that made audible noise,” Borganmeisterâ‡¥said. “It was loud enough where I could hear it in the front seat.”â‡¥â†µâ‡¥

â†µâ†µâ†µSports By Brooks dug up the police report and it turns out the four guys in question are Georgia football players, albeit unnamed Georgia football players.They’ve been charged with “terroristic threats.”â†µ

â†µ

â†µAt this point your author did the following things:â†µ

â†µâ†µâ‡¥Typed “borgan meister” into Google Translate in case itâ‡¥came back with “sausage master” or something.
â‡¥â†µâ‡¥Scoured the internets until I came across a Georgia Rivals mod shooting down aâ‡¥conspiracy theory (permalink)â‡¥about the police report.

â†µâ†µâ†µSo... yeah. It appears a bratwurst-spurred slap attack by Georgia football players that becomes public on April Fool’s Day is, in fact, a legit occurrence. What a country. â†µ

â†µâ†µNo one’s confirming or denying anything about the identity of the players or even that these four guys are actually UGA players, but you can read the tone on the message board link above: this isn’t a case of mistaken identity. (Brooks reached out to UGA and got what amounts to a no comment.) Given the minor nature of the charges, none of the accused here face much more than a slap on the wrist from the legal system, but the nature of the offense paints these guys in an exceptionally unflattering light. It’s one thing to get in a fight. That happens on occasion. It’s another to start slapping people because they asked about your (completely literal, not metaphorical at all)bratwurst. If there’s not another side to the story here, a boy scoutlike Mark Richt might dole out punishment harsher than you’d expect.â†µ

â†µâ†µOne thing’s for sure: Georgia’s long tradition of minor traffic violations in the Fulmer Cup-which actually has a wikipedia page-is out the window. I can’t wait to see the bonus points on this one. â†µ

â†µ

â†µ*Editor's note: We tried to do our own follow-up phone call, but no one was in the Georgia sports communications office. We'll watch this closely to make sure we haven't been had.â†µ

â†µ

This post originally appeared on the Sporting Blog. For more, see The Sporting Blog Archives.

See More: