Vikings fans didn't have the best experience at the Eagles game
After the Philadelphia Eagles won the NFC title on Sunday, the entire city exploded in an exuberant celebration, complete with pole climbing, car surfing and a dune-buggy driving up the Art Museum steps. But there’s another side to this victory. Though it looked like Lincoln Financial Field was completely full of Eagles fans, there were Minnesota Vikings fans present. They not only had to watch their team get stomped by the Eagles, they had to endure some less-than-friendly behavior from Eagles fans.
Met up with @Vikings fans arriving home @mspairport from Philly early this morning. The two takeaways…they're sad about the team losing and they're disgusted with Eagles fans. pic.twitter.com/2aLdYScZ8L
— Ellery McCardle (@ElleryTV) January 22, 2018
Here’s what the Vikings fans described seeing:
Vikings hats being stolen, put into urinals and urinated on;
An Eagles fan pushing a Vikings fan to the ground and punching him in the face;
“Random acts of violence.”
TV station KARE 11 out of Minneapolis also interviewed a few fans who vaguely spoke of Eagles fans being “bad.” This quote, though, is a little perplexing.
“It’s a damper on everything, yes. Not interested in going to the Super Bowl anymore.”
The Vikings fan is saying that Eagles fans are what’s going to keep him from going to the Super Bowl in Minneapolis in a few weeks. But I think there’s a chance that the Eagles clobbering his Vikings into oblivion could also be a reason.
As far as the behavior those fans experienced, there’s no sense in defending it because it can’t be defended. But there’s also no sense in pretending that kind of behavior is specific to Philadelphia, or to Eagles fans. NFL games aren’t exactly known as paragons of virtuous behavior. Everyone loves to crap on Eagles fans, but fans punching each other happens at NFL games all the time.
And you would assume that fans punching police horses wouldn’t happen that often, either. An Eagles fan was arrested a week ago for doing just that, and any sane person could assume it was a onetime thing that would in no way repeat itself, at least not soon. How wrong we all were. Because in the parking lot of the Linc at 3:15 p.m. on Sunday, three hours before the game would even start, another man was arrested for punching a police horse in the face.
According to Philly.com, the culprit was 19-year-old Andrew Tornetta. The horse-punching incident happened when the mounted police were attempting to break up a crowd in the parking lot.
Police say Tornetta managed to maneuver himself out of the jacket the mounted officer was holding. When the trooper grabbed onto Tornetta’s sweatshirt, the suspect punched the state police horse twice on the right front shoulder before striking the corporal in the face, just below his right eye, officials said.
Once Tornetta had punched himself free from the officer and his horse, he shed his clothes in an attempt to evade arrest. Despite that “subterfuge,” he was quickly identified and arrested, though there’s no word on whether Tornetta was actually roaming around in his underwear.
Of all the things Eagles fans do, hopefully they don’t make punching police horses a tradition. Those horses didn’t do anything to them!
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Liz Roscher is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email her at lizroscher@yahoo.com or follow her on twitter! Follow @lizroscher
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