March 19, 2026
The lawsuit follows a controversial handcuffing incident involving Benjy Taylor.
Tuskegee males’s basketball coach Benjy Taylor is anticipated to file a lawsuit this week in opposition to Morehouse School campus cops after he was handcuffed and faraway from the court docket throughout a sport earlier this 12 months.
Taylor will meet along with his authorized crew in Atlanta on March 20 to formally announce the submitting. The lawsuit targets Morehouse School and campus cops R. Clark and M. Roberson.
The incident occurred in a Jan. 31 Division II sport between Tuskegee and Morehouse in Atlanta. Observers recorded the occasion, which shortly went viral on social media and sparked nationwide backlash.
“I’m puzzled, and I’m upset about how I used to be violated and handled as we speak,” Taylor stated on the time in an announcement obtained by Sports activities Illustrated. “For my gamers, my household and folks of Tuskegee to witness that’s heartbreaking for me. I used to be merely making an attempt to get the soccer crew out of the handshake line as they had been following proper behind me and the crew yelling obscenities! It was a really harmful scenario.”
In response to Taylor’s attorneys, the coach approached officers after noticing what he believed was a doubtlessly unsafe scenario in the course of the postgame handshake line. A bunch of Morehouse soccer gamers had entered the court docket and had been interacting with gamers and relations, which attorneys say violates convention safety guidelines.
Taylor requested officers to assist clear the court docket and implement the principles, however as a substitute, one officer handcuffed him and took him away. Authorities didn’t cost Taylor with any crimes.
The lawsuit shall be led by a crew of civil rights attorneys, together with Harry Daniels and John Burris, together with attorneys Gerald Griggs and Gregory Reynald Williams.
The SIAC fined Morehouse School an undisclosed quantity for its function within the incident. Morehouse School President F. DuBois issued an announcement that appeared to disagree with SIAC’s resolution.
“Whereas Morehouse management and I take the SIAC’s findings critically, we’ve questions on an investigation that didn’t embrace a request for the School’s enter however in the end decided accountability and a wonderful,” Morehouse School President, Dr. F. DuBois Bowman, stated the assertion obtained by HBCU Legends. “This falls wanting the due diligence anticipated of a good and complete course of, and we’re partaking straight with the SIAC to rethink, given the precedent such selections set for all SIAC establishments.”
Brown additionally famous that Morehouse issued an apology to Taylor the evening after the incident.
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