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. LRM 08/16/2011 at 8:32 PM #

    Welcome back, Old Mac.

  2. VaWolf82 08/16/2011 at 8:40 PM #

    You have to wonder how many other crimes he helped cover up.

  3. pack76 08/16/2011 at 8:42 PM #

    Well, why am I not surprised??? Oh yeah, its “the carolina way.” It is the biggest joke I’ve ever seen! It just keeps coming!!! Keep on keeping on!!!

  4. LRM 08/16/2011 at 8:45 PM #

    That’s just crazy talk, Va.

  5. Hungwolf 08/16/2011 at 9:02 PM #

    Stories came out of Chapel Hill for years, how the police called Dean to come get his players and never a word was heard or a player charged. Remember how Hokie fans been claiming Butch had covered up football players drinking and driving. Guess they knew what they were talking about.

  6. sequoyah 08/16/2011 at 9:18 PM #

    Accident report: http://dig.abclocal.go.com/wtvd/docs/UNC_crashreport.pdf

    lots of questions:
    Single car accident at 3:05 am on 5/29…drinking on a Saturday night, but not to .08?

    ‘additional info’ (45 in a 25) entered at 6:58 pm…long day for Sgt. Smith?

    A DL# is apparently entered on & redacted from the report, but he’s charged with NOL? (NOL can mean DL isn’t on his person, but can also mean several other things, including driving on a suspended license.)

    Smitty logs that he spoke to Corey Holliday (Assoc AD) on 6/3..why is talking with a 3rd party in the official report?

    hmmm…

  7. Wolfy__79 08/16/2011 at 9:26 PM #

    i just love to see the media covering what really happens in tarhole country

  8. highstick 08/16/2011 at 9:30 PM #

    The gift that keeps on giving!!

  9. Rochester 08/16/2011 at 9:38 PM #

    What were these guys thinking? Out late drinking? Don’t drive yourself home. That’s what the tutors are for.

  10. ncsukyle 08/16/2011 at 9:54 PM #

    Is it just me or does big time football (in this case that should be in quotes) feels more and more like organized crime?

  11. ncsu1987 08/16/2011 at 10:07 PM #

    Keep digging, WTVD. There’s gold in them thar hills….Just when I think things have settled down, someone chips away a little of the cheap veneer of the Carolina Way. It’s been Christmas all year…

  12. Prowling Woofie 08/16/2011 at 10:14 PM #

    LOVE the banner, Old Mac !

    Every day is Friday in Chapel Hill…

  13. EdMar 08/16/2011 at 10:37 PM #

    One of the players was under 21! The son of the owner was not driving! The report says he smelled alcohol but no breathalyzer tests where given! Turn over an 11 year old car, do $18,000 worth of damage and have the guts to write the speed at 25 mph! That had to be a total loss. What a coincidence that the policeman assigned to Butch Davis wrote the report. I wonder if he was the first one at the scene or the one that is called to “handle player issues”.

    The agent/coach = Butch’s long time friend
    The crooked tutor = Butch’s personal tutor
    The crooked cop = Butch’s personally assigned cop

    WOW

  14. packhammer 08/16/2011 at 10:40 PM #

    Based on a certain amount of personal knowledge of this type of situation, I can provide every assurance that those young men were simply on their way home from studying at the library when a dog or some other such animal ran out in front of the car and after attempting to avoid hitting the beast, the car inexplicably flipped over in what can only now be called a freak accident. Time to move on people and stop nitpicking every little transgression that may have occurred over in Chapel Hill anytime in the last decade.

  15. packhammer 08/16/2011 at 11:10 PM #

    Sorry, I should have read the report first. There was no animal involved. The driver swerved to avoid hitting an unknown white car. So there. And with that, and all the other clearly described details in the report, that should pretty well explain most everything. Now move on.

  16. TheCOWDOG 08/16/2011 at 11:11 PM #

    Alot of you guys are missing a point I’ve made several times. Do you not understand that this is the type of “umbrella” that we used to have in bygone days?

    So, what this tells me is that the umbrella is folding up on them over there. Believe it.

    I’ve got stories that would drop your jaws that never saw the light of day and or print. This revelation reveals something entirely different to me.

  17. TruthBKnown Returns 08/16/2011 at 11:49 PM #

    You have to wonder how many other crimes he helped cover up.

    Hmm… license tags?

  18. TruthBKnown Returns 08/16/2011 at 11:52 PM #

    packhammer, maybe that “unknown white car” was a typo. Maybe it was an “unknown white cat”. So you could still be right about the animal angle.

  19. MrPlywood 08/17/2011 at 12:57 AM #

    Seems to me that any number of these violations could have occurred:

    Aggressive driving
    Reckless driving
    Driving on wrong side of road
    Speeding in excess of 55 mph

    As far as the 45 in a 25, had the charge been 55 (which sounds more like it) in a 25 it’s an automatic 30 day suspension.

    And is there not a “driving after drinking” law in NC?

    Last but not least: Willful refusal to submit to a blood or breath alcohol test – 1 year suspension. It’s nice to have a friend in enforcement so the issue doesn’t even come up…

  20. Wulfpack 08/17/2011 at 6:28 AM #

    “Is it just me or does big time football (in this case that should be in quotes) feels more and more like organized crime?”

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

  21. TLeo 08/17/2011 at 6:39 AM #

    “You have to wonder how many other crimes he helped cover up.”

    That is indeed a very good question. If this officer was covering up this incident, what else did he cover up down there? He should have been fired and not allowed to resign but I guess that might have made him mad enough to tell what else is going on. Since he resigned, he can get a job with another department fairly easy but if fired, not many departments would take a chance and hire him.

  22. TOBtime 08/17/2011 at 7:02 AM #

    What an absolute DA. You really do have to be 2 people to be that stupid and let it cost you your job. UNLESS…it was handled business as usual.

    That banner is clearly t-shirt gold! I would love to wear one around Greensboro.

  23. Rochester 08/17/2011 at 7:27 AM #

    How happy is UNC right now to have this Miami stuff explode? “See, everyone really is doing it, and worse!” No wonder those guys all went down to Miami for parties. Looks like the Hurricanes did it up right. Prostitutes and everything. Hoo-wee.

  24. runwiththepack 08/17/2011 at 7:57 AM #

    Miami – thank God for Miami! What took them so long? We’re dyin’ here. – sincerely, UNC-CH fan.

    Plywood – we’re working on a DWI law in NC. Stiff opposition from Chapel Hill, though.

    3 AM, eh? “Nothing good happens after midnight”, right?

    It probably wasn’t a white car that he swerved to avoid – it was a white HOUSE!!

  25. nav 08/17/2011 at 8:00 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.

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