Draymond Green's alleged victim tells police he was choked, punched
In his first public comments since his assault and battery arrest over the weekend in East Lansing, Mich., Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green told ESPN he expects the matter to be “resolved really quickly,” but the police report tells a more complicated, albeit one-sided, account.
Ball Don’t Lie received a copy of the police report through a Freedom of Information Act request.
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The alleged victim, Michigan State defensive back Jermaine Edmondson, and his girlfriend leveled several accusations against Green in statements to police, beginning with the Second Team All-NBA selection allegedly bumping Edmondson at Rick’s bar on Friday night and asking, “Do you know you I am?” before members of Green’s entourage grabbed Edmondson and his girlfriend by the throat.
The two men ran into each outside of Conrad’s Grill the following night, when Green allegedly began poking Edmondson and struck him across the face, according to Edmondson’s accounts to police.
Jermaine Edmondson’s written statement to police on the alleged Draymond Green altercation: pic.twitter.com/ZIT94jRVBG
— Ben Rohrbach (@brohrbach) July 13, 2016
The following is Edmondson’s full written statement to police the night after the alleged altercation.
“Friday, July 8th I went out to the bar Ricks and came across Draymond Green and two other males that were with him who followed everywhere he went. I was talking to one of my teammates when Draymond bumped into me and I said ‘hey bro you can at least say excuse me’ he looked at me and continued to talk to my teammate asking him who I was. I told him don’t worry about who I am and I asked who he was to think that it’s okay to bump into somebody without saying excuse me. He then said I pay for n*ggas like you scholarships, I then started to say you have me messed up before I was choked out by 2 guys who were with him. I was taken downstairs by 3 of Ricks employees to calm the situation until I heard my girlfriend yell. So I run over to her to see what was going on and she said she was choked by another one of the guys who were with Draymond for trying to calm the situation down. This is wrong on so many levels for someone to think that something like this is okay. Me and my girlfriend were both choked in front of our peers and we couldn’t do anything about it.
“Saturday, July 9th (the night of my birthday) Me, my girlfriend, and a couple of other friends went back to Ricks to celebrate and enjoy my night. As the bar was closing my girlfriend and I went to Conrad’s. I noticed Draymond was in there, I didn’t pay him any mind until he walks all the way across the line to look my girlfriend up and down and smirks at her. I still did not say a word to him. About 5 minutes later when everyone is outside, I see my roommate and Draymond talking, I walk over and I tell Draymond that last night wasn’t cool. Aa he responded to me he began to poke me on my shoulders and I tell him that he doesn’t need to put his hands on me, we can just talk. As I started to talk again, boom, I’m punched in my jaw. In front of all of my peers and friends.
“As far as today, I’m not feeling the best. My neck and my jaw still hurts along with the headache that I’ve had since I was hit. I would like to take further action on this situation and I am willing to fully cooperate to get this situation taken care of.”
While Edmondson said Green “punched” him in the early hours of Sunday morning, police described hearing and witnessing an open-handed slap in the report. And while Edmondson attested to head, neck and jaw pain the following day, he did not report any injuries at the time of the incident.
“There were no injuries or medical treatment sought for Edmondson at this time,” East Lancing police officer Jeff Horn described in his initial report. “Edmondson was holding his jaw, however indicated he did not want to see a medic and there was no bleeding or anything from inside his mouth.”
All other witnesses either fled the scene or refused to offer a written statement to police.
Upon being handcuffed and transported to a patrol vehicle, Green “did say some excited utterances, indicating that he was sorry for slapping the subject and wanted to speak with him to make things right,” the report said. According to the report, Green was administered a breathalyzer test and blew a 0.10 blood alcohol level when booked by East Lansing police in jail. Be Responsible About Drinking describes a 0.10 BAC as: “Significant impairment of motor coordination and loss of good judgment. Speech may be slurred; balance, vision, reaction time and hearing will be impaired. Euphoria.”
Green posted $200 bail a little over four hours after being incarcerated around 3 a.m., the report said.
Appearing at the Fortune Brainstorm Tech conference on Tuesday in Aspen, Colo., Green told reporters, according to ESPN’s Marc J. Spears, “I think when things happen, I think you meet them head-on. My legal team is handling it. It will be resolved really quickly. As a public figure, I just can’t put myself in certain situations. It’s something that I’ll learn from and just move on.”
A district judge granted a waiver request by Green’s lawyer of an arraignment scheduled for July 20, according to MLive.com. The Warriors star reportedly entered a plea of not guilty and will not be required to attend a pretrial conference on Aug. 4, when he will presumably be at the 2016 Rio Olympics as a member of Team USA. On Monday, Green’s lawyer, James Heos, told the San Jose Mercury News, “I will tell you Draymond is completely innocent — ‘completely’ should be capitalized.”
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is a contributor for Ball Don’t Lie and Shutdown Corner on Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at rohrbach_ben@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter! Follow @brohrbach