When young men behaving badly goes really bad
This week's column.
It probably won't be easy for three University of North Carolina football players to live down being allegedly kidnapped, held at knifepoint and sexually assaulted by two women they met at a Chapel Hill nightclub in mid-December.
After all, these were guys ... football players no less.
But here one of them was, whispering desperately by cell phone for the police to rescue him and his teammates.
The players were celebrating a birthday. They met the women and a male companion at the club, according to a police report, left with them and wound up at the players' apartment in the wee hours of a Sunday morning.
Some of the events that followed aren't appropriate for a family newspaper. So, suffice it to say that they got along well for a while. And then didn't.
The two women and their male companion held the men against their will, the players say, and, to add injury to the insult, robbed them.
Fortunately, police arrived to find two of the players wearing boxer shorts and bound with duct tape.
You could hear the giggles from one end of I-40 to the other.
But this wasn't some twisted Farrelly Brothers comedy. This was real.
The alleged assailants — Tnika Monta Washington, 29, of Durham, Monique Jenice Taylor, 28, of Greenville, and Michael Troy Lewis, 32, of Durham, were scheduled for a court appearance on Thursday.
Police charged Taylor and Washington with resisting an officer, first-degree kidnapping, felony conspiracy and first-degree sex offense.
Lewis was charged with kidnapping, conspiracy and attempted felony larceny, robbery with a dangerous weapon and assault on a government official and resisting an officer.
Lewis has served a previous sentence in federal prison for armed bank robbery, court records say.
This could have been much worse.
The fact is, youth tends to create illusions of invincibility and to breed recklessness. Add the swagger of athletes and alcohol-induced brio to the mix and you've got a recipe for trouble.
The timing of the incident seemed perversely fitting. If 2007 taught us anything, it's that fame and athletic prowess are no suits of armor.
Nearly a year ago a group of professional football players traded words with other men at a Denver nightclub on New Year's Day. Not long thereafter, the players were ambushed by gunfire in their Hummer limousine.
When it was over, Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams lay dead in the arms of teammate Javon Walker. He was 24.
Star safety Sean Taylor of the Washington Redskins, also 24, was killed in his own bedroom in Florida by intruders.
In separate incidents, two NBA stars, Antoine Walker and Eddy Curry, were robbed in their homes, though both escaped rattled but unharmed.
This was not Walker's first encounter with an armed robbery. In 2000, he and a teammate were robbed of cash and other valuables, including a $55,000 wristwatch, as they sat in a vehicle at a Chicago intersection.
In pain and misery, it seems, the Carolina football players have plenty of company. And a whole semester's worth of lessons learned in the span of one night:
1. Whether you can run, catch, tackle or dunk, you are no less susceptible to violent crime than anyone else.
2. That women are just as capable of that violence as men.
3. That alcohol, strangers and carelessness are a dangerous brew.
4. That sexual assault can be an equal-opportunity offense.
5. And that it should be expected for these players to need time and help to deal with the trauma of that night.
Even the mood on a Web site for snickering Duke fans grew somber as that reality sank in.
In the months to come, other fans and players may not be as sensitive.
That's something the three players may have to live with.
But at least they will live.
.
Comments (2)
To report abuse of the comment feature on this site, please use the feedback form at the bottom of any page.
Taylor and Washington look as though they could be football players themselves.
Allen it is interesting that each individual you mentioned in this article are black people, was it intended or just coincidental ?
poor upbringing, lack of respect (for self or others), poor education and no connection to God are some of the factors which may have played into this event. these football players are not innocent bystander but young adults who must live and suffer from the consequences of wrong choices. one suggestion is to keep it zipped unless you are relieving yourself. don't become known as a 'baby's daddy'. real men support their own wife and their own children.
while i don't believe they deserved to be kidnapped and abused - you gotta admit that it is chuckle worthy that three football players were taken down by a couple of women.
Posted on January 7, 2008 1:19 PM
What you gonna say to these kids these days?
They ain't gonna listen!
Now the know how a woman feels, when she gets "violated." Especially when there is a knife to her throat, and the groping of her privates.
Yes, this is not a laughing matter. Hell, yeah it is! Especially when you got football players that got "TAR HEELED!"
Posted on January 8, 2008 8:40 PM