ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Tuskegee men\u2019s basketball coach Benjy Taylor was handcuffed after intervening in an incident involving his team and members of Morehouse\u2019s basketball and football teams over the weekend.<\/p>\n
A statement from civil rights attorney Harry Daniels\u2019 office said Taylor was concerned about Morehouse football players who \u201cwere acting aggressively\u201d toward Tuskegee players and their parents during postgame handshakes on Saturday.<\/p>\n
The statement said the football players\u2019 presence is prohibited by conference-mandated security protocols. It said after Taylor asked a second officer to enforce those protocols to diffuse the situation, the officer handcuffed him and escorted him from the court.<\/p>\n
Though Taylor was not charged, he has hired Daniels and attorneys Gregory Reynald Williams and Gerald Griggs to represent him. The attorneys say they are considering a civil lawsuit.<\/p>\n
Daniels said Taylor was right to try to protect his team, and the officer was out of line.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt would be bad for a police officer to treat anyone like this,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cBut to do it to a man like Coach Taylor, a highly respected professional and role model, to put him in handcuffs, humiliate him and treat him like a criminal in front of his team, his family and a gym full of fans is absolutely disgusting and they need to be held accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
A statement from Tuskegee president Mark Brown and athletic director Reginald Ruffin said the school leaders were proud of Taylor\u2019s commitment to the athletes and the school\u2019s values.<\/p>\n
\u201cDuring the events in question, Coach Taylor acted solely out of his fundamental responsibility to protect his student-athletes and staff \u2014 particularly in an environment where agreed-upon and customary game\u2011management and security protocols were not properly carried out,\u201d the statement said. \u201cHis conduct remained measured, professional, and entirely consistent with the expectations of a head coach entrusted with the safety of his team.\u201d<\/p>\n
Morehouse did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n
On Monday, the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference fined Morehouse an undisclosed amount, saying it failed to meet mandated conference safety standards.<\/p>\n
___<\/p>\n
Get poll alerts and updates on the AP Top 25 throughout the season. Sign up here<\/a> and here<\/a> (AP mobile app). AP college basketball: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/ap-top-25-college-basketball-poll<\/a> and https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/college-basketball<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA (AP) \u2014 Tuskegee men\u2019s basketball coach Benjy Taylor was handcuffed after intervening in an incident involving his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":446233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[9604,5183,402,209754,4044,2662,9092,793,681,209756,209758,24941,209757,209755,200479,99,795],"class_list":{"0":"post-446232","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-al-state-wire","9":"tag-alabama","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-benjy-taylor","12":"tag-college-basketball","13":"tag-college-sports","14":"tag-ga-state-wire","15":"tag-general-news","16":"tag-georgia","17":"tag-gerald-griggs","18":"tag-gregory-reynald-williams","19":"tag-harry-daniels","20":"tag-mark-brown","21":"tag-reginald-ruffin","22":"tag-send-to-apple-news","23":"tag-sports","24":"tag-u-s-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=446232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/446232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/446233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=446232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=446232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=446232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}