The ACC police "bust every football player" patrol strikes again

by vineyarddawg on Oct 14, 2009 12:22 PM EDT Comment 10 comments

Just read this article stating that Vance Cuff has been arrested and suspended, so he won't be at Vanderbilt. Now, no one can justify driving on a suspended license, which is just a dumb thing to do, but look at the reason he was pulled over (emphasis mine):

Georgia backup cornerback Vance Cuff has been suspended from Saturday's game at Vanderbilt after being arrested Tuesday on misdemeanor charges of driving with a suspended license and emerging from an alley.

...

The arrest occurred after Cuff, riding a scooter, exited an alley next to UGA's Butts-Mehre athletics building and rode down Rutherford Street, which is temporarily closed because of construction. He was stopped for using the closed road and arrested when it was discovered he had a suspended license.

Now, a critic would look at that quote and say, "Well, he was driving down a closed street and the cop stopped him... what's wrong with that?" Well, if the cop stopped Cuff because he saw him driving down a closed street, how would he have known that he "emerged from an alley?" And what the (redacted) kind of crime is "emerging from a (redacted) alley," anyway?

My point is that we've repeatedly seen evidence that the Athens-Clarke County police specifically target athletes and try to "get them" as often (and repeatedly) as possible. I have multiple friends and acquaintances who are law enforcement officials, and I fully support and defend virtually every action they take, because theirs is an incredibly dangerous profession, and they far too often are subject to an "assumption of guilt" that those who break the law are not. Because I support the honest and hard-working "good" cops, though, it fires me up that much more when you see cops abusing their authority and targeting specific groups of people like ~~the~~ a portion of ACC cops clearly do to athletes.

I mean, come on, people. If someone were tailing you every minute of your life in college (as these cops clearly do to athletes), how many times do you think you would have ended up in the paper?

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And the hits just keep on coming . . .

Seriously, there needs to be a staff person (or at least an intern) in the athletic department whose job is to confirm that players’ licenses are not suspended. This is getting ridiculous! It’s the most easily avoidable offense possible. Pay . . . your . . . parking . . . tickets . . . on . . . time. If our players just did that, this wouldn’t keep happening.

Go 'Dawgs!

by T Kyle King on Oct 14, 2009 12:42 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I bet

you could even get a student or intern or somebody who wants a sideline few who could have the sole job of checking drivers licenses and insurance and basic life kind of stuff, and even use it as a teaching point with the players. In fact – how do you get a campus sticker without a current license? You are right Kyle, this is an easy fix – the army can get 200,000 young soldiers proper paperwork surely UGA Athletic Department can make sure its athletes are squared away.

by tankertoad on Oct 14, 2009 7:59 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If someone were tailing you every minute of your life in college (as these cops clearly do to athletes), how many times do you think you would have ended up in the paper?

Perhaps daily – but often enough that I don’t even want to think about it. Thanks.

by podunkdawg on Oct 14, 2009 12:53 PM EDT reply actions 0 recs