One day after being handcuffed and escorted off the court by police, Tuskegee University men’s basketball coach Benjy Taylor has retained legal counsel.
On Sunday, Feb. 1, Atlanta-based civil rights attorney Harry Daniels announced in a news release that Taylor has hired him to pursue a potential civil lawsuit.
According to Taylor and Tuskegee athletic director Reginald Ruffin, Taylor asked the security officer to follow conference rules and help remove a group of Morehouse football players — who Taylor said were yelling obscenities — from the handshake line. Instead, after a brief interaction, the security officer handcuffed Taylor and walked him off the court.
‘Such behavior from the Morehouse football players, particularly their intermingling with the basketball players on the court and during the postgame handshake is prohibited by conference-mandated security protocols,’ Daniels said in a statement announcing he had been hired by Taylor. ‘When Coach Taylor asked two police officers to enforce those protocols attempting to diffuse an increasingly dangerous situation, however, one of the officers chose to place him in handcuffs and escort him from the court. Coach Taylor was never charged with a crime.”
According to Daniels, attorneys are investigating “all legal avenues.”
“It would be bad for a police officer to treat anyone like this,” Daniels said in the release. “But to do it to a man like Coach Taylor, a highly respected professional and role model, to put him in handcuffs, humiliate him and treat him like a criminal in front of his team, his family and a gym full of fans is absolutely disgusting and they need to be held accountable.”
“During the events in question, Coach Taylor acted solely out of his fundamental responsibility to protect his student-athletes and staff — particularly in an environment where agreed-upon and customary game‑management and security protocols were not properly carried out,” the letter said. “His conduct remained measured, professional, and entirely consistent with the expectations of a head coach entrusted with the safety of his team.
“At no time did Coach Taylor engage in behavior that could be characterized as unbecoming, unprofessional, or inconsistent with the standards of Tuskegee University, the Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC), Morehouse College, or intercollegiate athletics broadly,” the letter continued. “Conversely, the circumstances that culminated in Coach Taylor being handcuffed — albeit briefly — fall well outside the bounds of what is normal, acceptable, or appropriate in collegiate athletic environments. No coach should ever be placed in such a position for carrying out their duty to safeguard student-athletes.”
The university said it remains “committed to working closely” with the SIAC and its fellow members to ensure that security and event-management standards are implemented and upheld at future sporting events.
The Alabama-based school hasn’t responded to a USA TODAY Sports request for comment.