Sheriff claims deputies didn’t search lacrosse team’s private gadgets, body digital camera shows in any other case

LIBERTY COUNTY, Ga. (WTOC/Gray Information) - An incident that involved gamers from a university’s lacrosse team and deputies in Georgia stays underneath investigation.

WTOC experiences Delaware State University President Tony Allen launched a statement on Monday responding to the incident that reportedly occurred on April 20 in Liberty County.

Allen wrote Georgia law enforcement stopped a bus for a minor site visitors violation with the Delaware State Lacrosse staff on board. Deputies searched the belongings of the student-athletes, together with suitcases with drug-sniffing canines.

“100% you may’t be in that left lane at all,” stated a Liberty County Sheriff’s Deputy.

The group was returning house from a recreation in Florida and touring by a contracted bus, according to Allen.

Liberty County Sheriff William Bowman held a news convention about the incident but took no questions. He claimed that no personal gadgets on the bus have been searched.

Physique digital camera video obtained by WTOC, nonetheless, clearly showed the deputies going by the scholars’ luggage and even remedy.

The university president wrote in his assertion that videos taken by players showed regulation enforcement trying to intimidate them into confessing to possession of drugs and/or drug paraphernalia.

“They didn’t really ask us,” mentioned Sydney Anderson, a Delaware State Lacrosse Participant. “They knowledgeable us of what they’re gonna do and no one questioned them...we simply let them rattle by our stuff.”

A participant on the bus asked: “How did we go from being in the incorrect lane to going through our bags?”

A deputy responded: “Properly, he stopped y’all, he didn’t cease y’all for a site visitors violation...he stopped the driving force for a site visitors violation.”

Nothing illegal was discovered within the search, and Allen knowledgeable the public that he has contacted Delaware’s governor, the Black Caucus and different state officials.

Allen wrote that everyone was incensed over the incident.

Allen also added the following:

“We do not intend to let this or every other incident prefer it go idly by. We are ready to go wherever the evidence leads us. Now we have video. We've allies. Perhaps more considerably, we have now the courage of our convictions.”

Allen concluded his assertion by writing, “We are going to never be bullied into believing something apart from what we are: People, learners, teachers, builders—useful and honorable individuals able to soar.”

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