Mark Winegardner on the Alabama teabagger and LSU victim in ESPN the Mag

[hondo]

Three different guys went to pull down their zippers and display themselves next to the drunk guy that night (two were stopped from doing it). Is that an Alabama thing? A drunk guy thing? WTF?

It's a stupid thing.

It's a sophomoric thing.

I guarantee you if you had searched "College Humor" or some other similar site for "teabagging" you would have gotten hundreds and hundreds and videos. heck, you probably still can. None of those people are being sent to prison, as far as I know, although they probably didn't commit their crimes in the moral bastion of Bourbon Street.

It is a form of shame and ridicule for someone who is passed out, similar to writing things on their face, etc.

I certainly don't condone it, but "teabagging" wasn't invented by this guy.

Doesn't mean those "hundreds and hundreds" of videos weren't sexual assault. They were. Those idiots didn't get caught. This guy did. Tough luck. He deserves jail time just for being stupid.

 

[hondo]

Both guys were behaving like wasted, inconsiderate frat boys.
Embarrassing public scoldings and moderate fines are enough for me.

But one of the guys who was wasted wasn't inconsiderate. He wasn't anything. He was passed out. Every dickhead who saw him (either the bagging, putting the Krystal boxes on his head, etc) had the option to simply walk on by.

 

[hondo]

I don't believe he doesn't remember what he did.

Well, it makes a good excuse after the fact to claim he was so drunk he didn't remember.

 

[hondo]

Again, a waste of taxpayer money.
Spank them both, and fine 'em both.

Why both? The LSU guy wasn't bothering a soul. He was passed out, dead drunk. oblivious. In a sense, minding his own business. Doesn't give someone else the right to debase him.

 

[BB Bobcat]

Actually, the teabagger did remember, sort of....

"So dude," one of the friends said. They'd reached the other side of Lake Pontchartrain. Downing was driving. "Do you remember anything about Krystal?"

"I don't know what you're talking about," Downing said. His friends told him.7 It took some convincing. Soon, though, the wheels started turning. It came back to him, dimly. A random LSU fan. Some hazy memory that he, Brian Downing, had for God knows what reason presented his ball sack to the faceless many. A jumbled-up din of laughter and cheers and chants of "Roll Tide."

This is bad, he thought.

For a while, the friends ragged him, but before long they were asleep. Downing was in disbelief. He spent much of the way home playing the what-if game, trying to think through the various consequences that might come from putting his balls on another man's face. By the time he pulled into his driveway, though, he'd convinced himself that, yes, what had happened was stupid, monumentally stupid. But worse things happen on Bourbon Street every night, don't they? He went inside. He kissed his wife and baby. Within a day or so, Brian Downing stopped worrying about the incident altogether.

 

[Drip]

Zag, this guy wasn't that drunk. If he was that drunk, he'd been like the LSU fan. He knew what he was doing. Look at the video. He wanted to be an ass clown supreme.

Did you even read the story?

Him and his friends were drinking for hours and that included shots and whiskey and all kinds of stuff -- and when he woke up the next morning his friends asked if he remembered anything about the night before or being in the diner and he didn't.

Does anyone else have a problem with stuff like this being posted on the internet and charges resulting from someone watching a video?

That part does bother me a bit.

Zag, that guy wasn't that forked up. I'm not buying it.
Mark, a crime is a crime.

 

[dixiehack]

Both guys were behaving like wasted, inconsiderate frat boys.
Embarrassing public scoldings and moderate fines are enough for me.

I hope the guy sues the shirt out of him and Krystals. Hit them where it really hurts, in the pockets.

The place where Krystals hurt you is in between your back pockets.

And if he sues the restaurant, what stops them from filing trespassing charges. There is no constitutional right for drunks to treat an all-night hamburger joint like it was Motel 6.

 

[Hokie_pokie]

I thought this was a good story, but one that very easily could've been great with a little less focus on the play-by-play of the event -- yeah, I know, teabagging sells magazines -- and more emphasis on the fallout for both the perp/victim and their families.

I especially wanted to hear more from the wife. As a married guy myself with two kids, I can't imagine how she must feel, realizing a guy she thought she knew so well was capable of doing something like that. I think the writer missed a chance to really get into the heart of this story by mostly leaving her out of it.

Also, I would've liked a much deeper examination of the mob mentality that allows shirt like this to happen in so many cases. Maybe I'm wrong for being so, but I'm almost as pissed-off at the forking cowards in the Krystal who had a chance to do something to help the passed-out kid and instead chanted "Roll Tide."

What the fork is wrong with people?

 

[Drip]

Both guys were behaving like wasted, inconsiderate frat boys.
Embarrassing public scoldings and moderate fines are enough for me.

I hope the guy sues the shirt out of him and Krystals. Hit them where it really hurts, in the pockets.

The place where Krystals hurt you is in between your back pockets.

And if he sues the restaurant, what stops them from filing trespassing charges. There is no constitutional right for drunks to treat an all-night hamburger joint like it was Motel 6.

He was a customer in the restaurant. Albeit a drunk customer, but he deserved to be protected by management. And it didn't help that a Krystals employee watched the whole thing and did nothing. Sue! Sue! Sue!

 

[Bamadog]

Believe it or not I don't have a strong opinion on the sentencing ----

But...

1.) This story left a lot to be desired. Like someone said it was rather shallow and didn't really contain a lot more than just the facts. Would really have liked to hear more from the teabagger's wife and family. Would like to know more about how he is being treated by people in his neighborhood/community etc.

2.) Did I read this right - the teabagger has never apologized to the teabaggee? What the heck - that should have been the first thing that was done.

3.) I could have lived with a sentence of a big fine and a couple of years probation but 10-months in a camp is OK I suppose. I think that this is exactly the kind of thing we way too often pooh pooh as just drunken silliness - but this was a 32-year old man, not an 18-year old college kid. Had the teabagger been 18-year old college kid, I'd probably say the sentence was too steep but if you are 32 and don't know any better then maybe you need jail time.

4.) If ever there was a story we could use to teach our kids about why they shouldn't drink to excess, well this is it.

I mean, in many ways the kid who got teabagged is LUCKY that is all that happened to him - he got drunk so badly that he wandered around the French Quarter - a high crime area by the way - and then passed out in a diner for hours and has no idea how he ended up sleeping in his car.

And here is a family man who got so drunk he lost his mind, along with his self respect, dignity and not too mention his job and maybe even his family (she says she is standing by her man, but, um, we shall see....), and for what?

Agreed on the fourth point. I remember I was covering the New Orleans Bowl. I was in traffic in the French Quarter where I was going to meet my uncle at a restaurant. This guy comes running warp speed past my car. Then I hear, "Stop, thief."

If only I would've heard that earlier and I would've stopped the guy with my car door. I hate thieves. Wandering around drunk late at night is just asking to be mugged or worse.

Nothing good comes of drunkeness. Nothing good occurs after 1 a.m., unless your wife wakes you up and says she's in the mood. Then that's okay.

As an Alabama grad, I'm just disgusted and embarrassed about this grotesque assault. But the thing that really upsets me is that so many Alabama people in the Krystal's that night were just standing and watching. Didn't anyone have the cojones (no pun intended) and moral fortitude to say "Dude, not cool," and restrain that idiot? I think he got off lightly. That's a sexual assault, no matter how you color it.

I don't see the big deal about an apology, especially if it's the kind that are around these days with no sincerity. They're more I'm sorry I got caught than anything else. I think at this point, it'd be a meaningless gesture.

My college hijinks didn't go past shaving half a friend's head when he was passed out and doing a harlequin drawing on a drunk friend's face with a black marker (not a Sharpie). The part with the eyes was particularly difficult.

 

[Bamadog]

I thought this was a good story, but one that very easily could've been great with a little less focus on the play-by-play of the event -- yeah, I know, teabagging sells magazines -- and more emphasis on the fallout for both the perp/victim and their families.

I especially wanted to hear more from the wife. As a married guy myself with two kids, I can't imagine how she must feel, realizing a guy she thought she knew so well was capable of doing something like that. I think the writer missed a chance to really get into the heart of this story by mostly leaving her out of it.

Also, I would've liked a much deeper examination of the mob mentality that allows shirt like this to happen in so many cases. Maybe I'm wrong for being so, but I'm almost as pissed-off at the forking cowards in the Krystal who had a chance to do something to help the passed-out kid and instead chanted "Roll Tide."

What the fork is wrong with people?

Agree 100 percent. Cowards. That's not a Roll Tide moment for sure.

 

[Riptide]

Bamadog, shaving half your friend's head was battery. You could have faced charges. Roll Tide.