Accident report prong?

WTVD continues to provide excellent coverage to the ever-multiplying UNC-CH football scandals.  This story raises many questions about about the way UNC-CH police (and specifically Butch’s game day police officer) handled a vehicle crash investigation involving football players.  Here is a pdf of the actual accident report.  Some excerpts from the article:

The ABC11 I-Team is examining information about an on-campus vehicle crash that involved football players and a UNC police officer, who served as the game day officer for former head football coach Butch Davis.

and

UNC players Carl Gaskins, Jr., Dion Guy and Ebele Okakpu were passengers in the car Davidson was driving.

The crash caused $18,000 in damage to the car Davidson was driving, which belonged to Okakpu’s father.

The police report also indicates Davidson had alcohol on his breath but was not impaired. The report doesn’t say whether the other players had been drinking.

The initial report said the car was traveling the speed limit at the time of the crash; but nearly 16 hours later, the report was later changed to say the car was going 45 mph in a 25 mph zone.

Sgt. Smith wrote in the report, “I changed the travel and impact speed of the collision from 25 to 45 based on the severity of the collision and other factors combined. To have an incident of this magnitude, the vehicle had to have been traveling higher than the posted speed of 25 mph.”

Davidson only received a citation for not having a valid driver’s license. He was not issued a speeding ticket and none of the players were taken into custody.

and

UNC says Smith resigned on July 15th, six weeks after the crash, but won’t say if the crash led to his resignation.

Smith denies a cover-up, but when asked about his resignation, he told the I-Team it was a “self-inflicted wound” and a “hard lesson learned.”

The former officer claims on his twitter page (@Tar_Heel_Smitty) to be “the BIGGEST Tar Heel fan in existence!”

He said, “I let my love for UNC interfere with real life and I paid the price.”

Smith believes he lost his job because of what he called a “message board and a few athletes.”

 

UNC Scandal

41 Responses to Accident report prong?

  1. Prowling Woofie 08/17/2011 at 8:39 AM #

    I agree, nav – I think the Miami situation is going to elevate the punishment for all programs currently under the microscope. What it may do is lessen the likelihood that the NCAA ever digs into the UNX men’s basketball program for potentially related issues, but I think the football program will suffer.

  2. TOBtime 08/17/2011 at 8:42 AM #

    nav, after the kid-glove handling of the OSU tattoo gang just before the Sugar Bowl public perception of the NCAA got flushed. The whole Cam Newton saga fits in there as well.

  3. Ed89 08/17/2011 at 9:22 AM #

    If the driver of an accident had ANY alcohol on his breath, he should have been taken downtown for a breathilizer. An accident at 3:00 a.m. involving alcohol and the driver wasn’t booked? He was barely 21, but if he was 20, he could blow a .01 and be booked….simple as that. Also, what 2000 Ford is worth $18,000? So how could you do that much damage to it?

  4. TheCOWDOG 08/17/2011 at 9:24 AM #

    “I don’t think the UM thing is going to help UNC. If anything it’s going to push the NCAA to use the current teams under investigation as an example to others. They are going to need to crack down hard because things are starting to get out-of-hand and public perception of NCAA enforcement is in the toilet.”

    Public perception? You want public perception…what’s the public perception now that the NCAA’s Chairman on Infraction’s Committee is about to go down in history as the leader of one of the dirtiest athletic programs ever?

    What momentum the NCAA appeared to be gaining is lost. Caput. Gone, like a fifth of gin.

    NCAA enforcement ain’t in the toilet boy, it’s in the sewers.

  5. packhammer 08/17/2011 at 11:22 AM #

    The NCAA needs to throw the book at somebody right now to establish some credibility. Lets see, who is up on about 9 counts and has a hearing coming up soon? Uh ohh. And now it appears that campus police have been in cahoots with the athletics dept. to hide illegal activity, and on top of the academic fraud issues.

    By the way, those fellows had to be going pretty fast, and no where near only 45 mph, to total the car. The odd thing is why the officer bothered to mention the alcohol smell in the report if he was going to let them off. That was just stupid. It must have been a hell of a mess that morning. I dont’ know how they got it all cleaned up before some news on it broke.

    And Tracy Smith got all that grief for parking in a handicapped zone. Can you imagine if this incident happened on the NC State campus? I guarantee you the media would have gone banannas on us. Maybe they are on to Unc now?

  6. kbrown 08/17/2011 at 12:29 PM #

    packhammer did you really just ask why the officer botherd to mention the alcohol smell in the report if he was going to let them off? This officer is the biggest Carolina fan in the world according to himself and we all know how intelligent those folk are. Wal-Mart UNC fans are not bright people, just google all the unc shirts in mugshots, lol.

  7. Greywolf 08/17/2011 at 1:08 PM #

    “YES! I feel dirty just reading about it. It’s really turning me off to it.”

    That’s funny. It does just the opposite for me. 😉

    Veered to miss an unknown white car? According to police report the “unknown white car” had to be in the right hand travel lane. You don’t suppose they were travelling so fast that they couldn’t put on breaks to stop. Maybe they were actually only going 25mph when they got to the “unknown white car” or cat. No report of skid marks except in their skivvies.

    CSI: Chapel Hill

  8. MrPlywood 08/17/2011 at 1:14 PM #

    I couldn’t resist checking out IC. The best so far: “haha, speed was later amended..yeah, okay…this is gonna be taken waaaay out of context.”

  9. stejen 08/17/2011 at 1:40 PM #

    What the UM situation may do is force Swofford to come out of hiding and do his job. And that would mean he would have to talk about the UNC situation as well. That will be the best comic performance we will probably ever see.

  10. packhammer 08/17/2011 at 2:42 PM #

    At a minimum, the driver should have been charged with careless/reckless driving. Silly me. I keep thinking any of this is supposed to make sense.

  11. TruthBKnown Returns 08/17/2011 at 5:08 PM #

    Maybe someone should request the cop’s phone records from the night of the accident. If we can’t get the 216 phone records from Butch, we can surely get the cop’s phone record that shows he CALLED the 216 phone (if he called it, that is).

    How awesome would that be! Now if someone would just take the steps to request those records…

  12. TLeo 08/17/2011 at 5:43 PM #

    “If the driver of an accident had ANY alcohol on his breath, he should have been taken downtown for a breathilizer”

    No, you can not do that. You have to have probable cause to arrest and taking him downtown without PC would have been an unlawful arrest. Just smelling alcohol is not probable cause. He should have, however, been given a roadside alco-sensor and field sobriety tests. Had those results justified it, he then should be arrested and taken for the intoxylizer. Apparently those road side tests were not done but should have been so he still was not doing his job.

  13. packhammer 08/17/2011 at 9:48 PM #

    Joe Giglio, are you on vacation? Hello big story here.

  14. packhammer 08/17/2011 at 10:38 PM #

    Well I see that the N and O has finally written on the matter. Although they seem to believe the “unknown white car” story. At least she could have attributed it to the report of officer Numbnuts. There is no corroboration for anything.

    By the way, has Thorp ever sent the message that Shalayla did which said that she expects everyone to cooperate and get the facts out? Some have questioned her statement but that is actually a strong signal to people. For example, the unc athletics official that was contacted about this drunk driving wreck/ incident needs to know that he will be expected to tell the truth about the call, who else he talked to, and what they agreed to do in response. Until told otherwise he is left in the dark as to what his bosses want him to do. And that goes for the whole stinking mess. At best there are mixed signals. For example all the fighting to prevent the release of the phone records sends a message to all employees to keep hiding the ball. Seriously, Thorp needs to speak clearly to let people know that he expects the truth to come out on everything and those who do not cooperate will suffer the consequences.

  15. runwiththepack 08/18/2011 at 3:56 PM #

    TLeo, “You have to have probable cause to arrest and taking him downtown without PC would have been an unlawful arrest. Just smelling alcohol is not probable cause.”

    isn’t running off the road at 3AM, along with the smell of alkyhaw, enough?!? I have a feeling that it would have been ‘nuf PC if I ran off the road at 3AM. And no, I haven’t tested that theory before.

    Oh, that’s right. The officer’s “love” “interfered” again. First, the tutor’s love interfered, then the Board Of Trustees’ loves interfered, and now this officer.

  16. GAWolf 08/19/2011 at 7:23 AM #

    Bad driving plus the odor of alcohol is PC per the case law. it might not be enough for guilt, but it’s likely PC.

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