True, there is never a good weekend to be hit with four Taser shots in the course of drunkenly, violently resisting arrest. That probably goes without saying. But last Saturday was especially bad timing for Pittsburgh offensive lineman Fernando Diaz (right, frolicking with teammates in the snow after last December's win over Cincinnati) to allegedly go Incredible Hulk on local police for three reasons: a) The arrest came less than two weeks after new Pitt head coach Todd Graham vowed to improve team discipline and hold players accountable, on the heels of a six-month stretch in which four Panther players were arrested for violent crimes, including one who allegedly threw a man through a glass door and another who allegedly assaulted his pregnant girlfriend;
b) It came less than two months after Graham's predecessor, Mike Haywood, was fired just 17 days into tenure for allegedly assaulting the mother of his one-year-old son on New Year's Eve; and
c) It came just days before Pitt was fingered as an outstanding culprit at the top of this week's Sports Illustrated cover story on criminal records in big-time college football.
So Pitt coaches, administrators and fans had to wake up today not only to an unflattering picture of their program in one of the nation's most influential publications, but also to this amazing account of Diaz's arrest last Saturday morning by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (emphasis added):
The suspect, Fernando M. Diaz, 20, of Bronx, N.Y., was taken into custody after a cruiser on routine patrol at 1:56 a.m. had to stop on Atwood because Mr. Diaz was standing in the middle of street yelling at someone in an adjacent parking lot. He refused to move, police said. When he saw the police car, officers said, he responded "What the [expletive] are you going to do, hit me?"
Officers got out of their car but he became belligerent and yelled at them, police said, and a crowd gathered. A man who said he was on the team with Mr. Diaz told him to "shut his mouth" and accept the citation for being publicly drunk, cautioning him that former Pitt Head Coach Dave Wannstedt was not there any more and new coach Todd Graham would make an example of him.
[…]
Police said Mr. Diaz refused to calm down, twice tried to walk away, and once the citation was written told police he wouldn't sign it, wouldn't accept it and wouldn't go to court. He began to walk away again and ignored orders to stop. Officers attempted to grab his arms but he pulled way in an aggressive manner and officers were only able to get one handcuff on him, police reported. He then began swinging his arms, one with the handcuffs attached, with closed fists at officers, police said. They contained him only after shooting him four times with a Taser.
Diaz – listed at 6-foot-2, 280 pounds by the university and 6-3, 300 pounds in the police report – didn't see the field in either of his first two seasons at Pitt, and (not surprisingly) is no longer listed on the roster following the arrest. Example set: When you're in such a state of confusion, belligerence and delayed physical response that authorities are forced to deploy the equivalent of the electrical current required to bring down a full-grown bear, there's no room for you on Todd Graham's team anymore.
- - -
Matt Hinton is on Twitter: Follow him @DrSaturday.
Monica Potter Brittany Snow Lauren German Cindy Crawford Mariah OBrien
No comments:
Post a Comment