Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, May 11, 1990 TAG: 9005110754
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-6 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: CHAPEL HILL, N.C. LENGTH: Medium
"I don't know what his deal is," Smith told The Chapel Hill Newspaper on Wednesday. "I hear he [the officer] used to follow J.R. [Reid] around, too." Reid is a former North Carolina basketball star now playing in the NBA.
Smith said the officer exploited the player's celebrity status when he arrested Rice on assault charges and resisting arrest.
"I'm aware of how we are in this world when it comes to athletes," Smith said. "I remember when [former North Carolina player] Brad Daugherty threw a jelly bean at someone, and that became a front-page story."
Capt. Ralph Pendergraph of the Chapel Hill Police Department had no reaction on Smith's comments.
Rice, 21, was charged with assault on a female and resisting arrest following an alleged Tuesday morning altercation, police said.
He will appear in District Court on May 31 to face charges he assaulted Natalie Nester, his girlfriend and a member of the N.C. State women's basketball team. Ms. Nester apparently was not injured.
Contacted at his home Wednesday, Rice said he would not comment on the incident until he had talked with a lawyer.
Chapel Hill police officer Ed Brooks, who arrested Rice in the parking lot of a downtown shopping center, said he talked to Rice and Ms. Nester at the scene of the incident and calmed them both down. When he told Rice he would charge him with assault, Brooks said, Rice became irate.
"I just wanted to bring him downtown - not put any handcuffs on him or anything - fill out the paperwork and then let him go about his business," Brooks said. "And there would have only been the one charge. . . . [But] with all the domestic violence, and all the rapes, we won't tolerate assault on a female."
by CNB