Bruin Report Online Gives Detailed Account of Diddy Arrest at UCLA

Major hat tip, bows, and salaams to Bruin Report Online (and to Jerry Neu's Jockstrap who first linked the report in the previous threads).

The UCLA Scout site published a detailed account of the events involving Sean (P Diddy) Combs and U.C.L.A. Strength & Conditioning Coach Sal Alosi at the Acosta Center earlier today. The account includes many specific details that were not reported earlier by TMZ or other traditional media sites which have provided limited accounts of the incident based on sources connected to the rap mogul.

The full article can be seen here and is a must read. I have included a couple key excerpts below, which describe actions that followed a verbal confrontation in Coach Alosi's office reportedly initiated by Diddy.

In the next moment, according to many on the scene, Diddy attacked Alosi, until interns and other personnel pulled off Diddy. The celebrity broke free again at one point and struck Alosi. The personnel were then successful in getting Diddy out of the office and into the weight room, where Diddy picked up a kettlebell, which is a type of barbell, and then swung in at one of the interns.

Earlier reports said that Diddy swung a kettlebell at Alosi, but this account suggests the target was one of the football interns who apparently helped separate the two. Fortunately, there is still no report that anyone was injured during this encounter.

The following graf is really the essence of the event. Despite some reports that Diddy was assuming a defensive posture with the kettlebell, when all was said and done, he was the one who was arrested and taken to jail. No one on the U.C.L.A. staff was arrested.

UCPD arrived, and the situation reportedly calmed down, and those close to events believed nothing would come of the incident. The UCLA training facility, however, is equipped with security cameras, the police watched the video, and subsequently arrested Diddy.

Yes, police sometimes arrest innocent and wrongly accused people. But if this account is accurate and campus police did watch the video before making an arrest, that's says a lot. Additionally, the charges have now been expanded.

Updated charges on Sean "Diddy" Combs, from UCPD: 3 counts assault w/ a deadly weapon, 1 count making terrorist threats, 1 count battery.

— Ryan Kartje (@Ryan_Kartje) June 23, 2015

"Terrorist threats" includes making a verbal threat to harm or kill someone.

This account also suggests that the coaching staff was appropriately trying to keep this in house and resolve it privately, and that it was UCPD who pushed forward with the arrest. I don't know whether UCPD requires an individual to press charges in order to arrest a party and charge that party with assault, or whether they can pursue that action based on their own independent interpretation of the events and evidence. Perhaps some of our local legal types can help fill us in on what due process requires in an instance like this.

Per the OCRegister's Joey Kaufman, Combs has posted bail and is scheduled to appear in court on July 13.

I somehow think we'll hear more about this in the meantime.

Regardless of how it got to this point, it is plenty unfortunate that U.C.L.A. Football is in the news over an event like this, and just a day after the freshman football players arrived on campus and we should be focusing on the upcoming season. We've already seen enough bad news with Coach Ulbrich's actions on National Signing Day, Soso Jamabo's speeding incident and arrest, some high profile transfers, Coach Adrian Klemm's suspension, and now this. Nevertheless, if the BRO account is accurate, and we must realize that their account is based on their own sources within U.C.L.A., then it looks like that the U.C.L.A. Football staff handled this situation as well as they could have.

We will keep following the developments as they are reported. Thanks again to Bruin Report Online for doing the digging and reporting that we aren't as likely to get from some of the glam media sites like TMZ.