Explosive Details Emerging Re. CKD's Former Superstar

by Nestor on May 19, 2006 9:03 AM PDT in Football

More troubling rumors are starting to coming out re. the former Dorrell (recruited) superstar of UCLA football program. ProFootballTalk.com, a site which has been on this story from the get go. Apparently Drew's agent had previously claimed that his client and former Bruin (thug) Ricky Manning didn't really know each other. Well check this out:

And here's another curious factor that sets off our patent-pending bullpoopie detector. Bakari (Drew's agent) claimed before the draft that Drew and Bears cornerback Ricky Manning, Jr. are not acquaintances. However, Thursday's AP story says that Drew and Manning were in the same vehicle when they both were arrested.

To be fair here the LA Times has a different version of accounts than AP story cited PFT.com as it reports that Drew wasn't in the car when Manning was arrested. It just says that he was not arrested with Manning the day of the (alleged) attack. So who knows? And here is another detail. According to the LA Times report it was not just one individual who was beating up the alleged victim (emphasis mine):

The victim asked the group to stop and then complained to a Denny's manager before someone in the group punched him in the face. He then was punched and kicked by multiple attackers until losing consciousness, according to Lewis.

The group left the restaurant, and Manning's SUV was pulled over by police in Westwood Village.

And speaking of this victim here is the explosive (alleged) tidbit from the guys at ProFootballTalk.com (emphasis mine):

Finally, here's one more tidbit regarding the incident that we've picked up from our discussions with league sources over the past few weeks.

The alleged victim is Muslim.

Maybe now the "real" media will get to the bottom of this one.

Yeap ... all this is making Karl Dorrell's UCLA football program look soooo good:

Photo: Karen Quincy Loberg/Ventura County Star

Like I asked yesterday - so exactly how has the UCLA football program improved since DG fired Toledo?

I'd like to hear some answers. I think the BruinsNation deserves some answers.

GO BRUINS.

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Bruins starring in COPS

Perhaps we should shut up for a while about the thuggery at $C when our own little angels are kicking the crap out of patrons at Dennys. Although I'm sure there's a lot more to the story than three elite athletes assaulting a poor innocent victim who was just trying to eat his Moons Over My Hammy in peace, this emerging story feels uncomfortably like Karma.

by SactoBruin on May 19, 2006 8:06 AM PDT 0 recs

One distinction ...

People here are looking for answers not making ready made excuses unlike Pom Pom's lackies. Also as noted ... as troubling as the emerging trendlines are under Dorrell, the systematic pattern of thugger and corruption at U$C is in a whole different stratosphere of sleaziness.

But simply saying "we are not as bad as Trojans" will not be good enough. I'd like to see Dorrell taking some PROACTIVE measures to confront this emerging disaster.

As has been pointed out - so far we have seen nothing - nada - zero leadership from Karl Dorrell.

by bluestreet on May 19, 2006 8:11 AM PDT up 0 recs

One has nothing to do with the other

Just because KD is starting to rack up negative press over his players off the field issues doesn't mean that SUC's issues go away. No one here was taking a "holier than thou" stance implying that our players would not be prone to these kinds of issues, but we did demand that someone be held accountable when they do, to hopefully prevent more incidents from occuring.

KD suspended Medlock following his DUI, and I gave him props for doing the right thing. I believe that his handling of the Ward and Hale situations has not been consistant with his first disciplinary action. I don't know how much of MJD's actions I can pin on KD, as I am more disappointed in MJD for letting me down as I believed he was a different kind of person. Meanwhile, lawlessness and thuggery run rampant at SUC without so much as a hint of discipline in sight, and the only reason we aren't hearing about more awful stories from the hellhole that is SUC is because they're done with "school" right now.

by scittles on May 19, 2006 1:26 PM PDT up 0 recs

KD's indecision

The last comment I read about the 2 linebackers charged with assault was that UCLA was going to wait until the legal portion of it played out.

The Manning/Drew/Ebell situation is very troubling but they are all also out of the school and not a lot can be done about their situation.

Rectal craneal inversion must be running rampant.

by artybruin on May 19, 2006 1:27 PM PDT 0 recs

just to play devil's advocate, and get some info..

Didn't MJD distance himself from KD and the school when he declared? So we can't pin it all as being KD is a hypocrite. Still reflects poorly either way, but it's not a magic bullet for ousting KD. Also with regard to the Hale situation, is the team still practicing? It isn't even summer yet, so KD may feel he has some time to let this play out before he has to decide. I agree that he should suspend them for the sake of consistency, but he isn't playing them or allowing them to practice with the team right? Not horrible, but perhaps a bit too nuanced a distinction if we wish to show how much better we are to $c, ethically. It's just sad when we have to eat crow too. Please don't misunderstand me. I'm not appologizing for KD, I just wanted to add some balance to the discussion.

by isodore on May 19, 2006 5:49 PM PDT 0 recs

Explosive Details?

At the risk of being called a "one trick Due Process pony", I want to briefly take a position I took on a thread involving Ward and Hale. (My long set of comments are in "The Other Side of the Issue" -- sorry I don't know how to embed links.)

WE DO NOT KNOW ANY DETAILS ABOUT WHAT MJD DID, IF ANYTHING, TO THE VICTIM -- EXPLOSIVE OR OTHERWISE.

The initial news stories linked him to Manning, Ebell and the victim. The strongest statements say he was present in the restaurant. Although they have Manning kicking the victim, they do not allege any direct acts, or acts of support, by MJD.

We have his agent saying that he was in the restaurant BEFORE Manning and Ebell arrived and that he was eating, alone. We will have to wait until more facts come in before we can chastise him for hanging with these bad seeds.

We know that Manning was arrested, in his SUV, and picked out of a lineup. Manning has been arraigned in court.

We don't know if MJD was in that SUV. His agent says MJD arrived and left in his own car.

There is now a story that reports that the victim was beaten be another group of men -- known to the police. We don't know how accurate this story is.

MJD's agent says he was never questioned by the police and never arrested. I've "Googled" and as best I can tell he has never been arraigned in court (charged in front of a judge). The stories say that he and Ebell will be arraigned at a later date.

This is truly a disturbing story. I am a big MJD fan. I truly beleived that he was exactly the type of athlete around one should build a quality program.

I don't think anyone on this board or elsewhere saw this coming.

Maybe, we were right.

Maybe, he didn't do anything wrong. Maybe this is a case of the appearance of guilt because he was in a place where a crime was allegedly committed by another football player.

In any event, as I posted in my comments on Ward and Hale (referring also to the Duke lacrosse team), it might behoove us to afford MJD the benefit of the doubt in our minds, and the Constitutional presumption of innocense -- before convicting him, his coach, and the program for which he played.

If he is truly guilty of this horrible crime, he should be punished. And, I mean really punished. In custody. None of that community service stuff that celebrities sometimes get. And, I would expect the NFL to act against him, too. Thugs should not be allowed to play. At least not until they have paid their debt to society and show some evidence of rehabilitation.

But, that is putting the cart before the horse and the guilt before the trial.

For now, we should chill. Let's wait to see what the truth is. The truth is not in the news stories. And, it's not in the self-serving statements of an agent.

It is in the proof -- physical evidence and testimony -- that will take some time to develop and emerge.

Unti then, the only thing that I've seen that is "explosive" is the rush to judge a young man, his coach, and his program.

He deserves more. So do we.

sjh

by Class of 66 on May 20, 2006 6:55 AM PDT 0 recs