Quote:This article was posted during Trae Bacon's second year of college, from a local newspaper in Boone called the Watauga Democrat. Image added just for flavor, not for extra grading, but of course no extra money would be turned down.
Local Star Football Player Arrested
November 7th, 2029
By Dani Mackenzie
Lights and sirens surrounded the normally peaceful River Street Alehouse last week, with a larger than life figure sitting on the curb in handcuffs. When he stands to be escorted to the nearby police car, he dwarfs both the officers, and it’s a tight fit to get him into the back seat. They have to push his head down pretty far, so he won’t hit it on the door. He doesn’t struggle or resist and seems calm.
The other man in handcuffs – across the street - is smaller, a good six inches shorter and probably half the mass of the first. He’s bleeding from the nose, but calm as he talks with the police and an unidentified man in a suit.
Trae Bacon is an up and coming star defensive tackle for the Mountaineers, currently in his second year at Appalachian State. His teammates praise his leadership on the field and in the locker room, his coaches give rave reviews on him. The few professors I could find to talk to say he shows up to class and does his work, which for a student with an athletic scholarship is a pretty strong recommendation. From what we could gather, he doesn’t often get into trouble.
I managed to interview somebody on the scene who had a cell phone video of what had occurred prior. He showed me the video on his cell phone. Here is an approximate description of what occurred during the video – some words may be paraphrased as we were only given a chance to see it once.
Trae Bacon (Allegedly): Nah man <expletive> you, that ain’t right.
Unknown Male: Yeah, what’re you gonna do you <expletive> <slur>?
Unknown male backs away from Trae Bacon
Trae Bacon: Get back here and say that to my face, mother <expletive>.
Trae Bacon walks quickly towards Unknown Male
Unknown Male: <expletive> you!
At this point the talking ends, and the unknown male spits at the (alleged) Trae Bacon, who then breaks into a run and tackles the other man to the ground. It’s over in under five seconds, and a few other large men run over and pull (alleged) Trae Bacon off the other man. Another thirty seconds later and the first police arrive, and the video ends.
We asked for a copy to post to our website, but the individual requested a larger sum of money than this newspaper makes in a month, then told us to check his twitter for the video. When we checked the next day, there was no video.
A few days later we caught up with Trae Bacon on campus while he was on his way to practice. We asked him for his take on the events, and this is all he gave us before walking away briskly:
"Man I went easy on him, nobody went to the hospital. We talked it out and we're good."
Trae Bacon sat out the next game, although when we interviewed the head coach, he denied that Trae Bacon was being sat out of the game as a disciplinary action, and instead said that Bacon had twisted his ankle during practice and they were simply taking a precaution.
Police records show that Trae Bacon was arrested and released. We were unable to find the other participant in the event to question, but apparently he had declined to press charges. When we spoke to the police, the only thing they would tell us is that Trae Bacon had not been intoxicated that night, and that there were no charges pressed so there was nothing else to say.
As they say, innocent until proven guilty, and Trae Bacon was never even charged.
[div align=center]
[/div]
[/div]