Tuskegee University coach Benjy Taylor retained civil rights attorneys following an incident Saturday after his team’s 77-69 loss at Morehouse College in which he was handcuffed and escorted off the court. His attorneys, Harry Daniels, Gregory Reynald Williams and Gerald Griggs, said in a statement Sunday they are investigating all legal avenues on Taylor’s behalf, including a possible civil lawsuit.
The shocking sequence where he was handcuffed and escorted off the floor punctuated a hard-fought battle between the two Division II HBCU rivals. It took place after Taylor and a police offer shared a brief exchange that quickly escalated as the officer grabbed his handcuffs from the back of his belt and put them on Taylor.
According to Taylor’s attorneys, he asked two police officers to enforce conference-mandated security protocols over concerns that Morehouse football players were intermingling with the basketball players on the court and causing a potentially dangerous situation at the end of the game. That was when the police officer handcuffed Taylor and escorted him into the hallway of the gym.
Taylor was not charged with a crime and he was released to travel back home with his team.
“It would be bad for a police officer to treat anyone like this,” Harry Daniels, one of Taylor’s attorneys, said in a statement. “But to do it to a man like Coach Taylor, a highly respected professional and role model, to put him in handcuffs, humiliate him and treat him like a criminal in front of his team, his family and a gym full of fans is absolutely disgusting and they need to be held accountable.
“Coach Taylor is a good man who did the right thing to protect his team and deescalate a dangerous situation, and this officer put him in chains for his troubles,” Daniels added.
Video of the incident shows Taylor in a state of bewilderment as he appears to react in real-time to being told he is being handcuffed. His shock quickly turned into a smile, seemingly laughing at how outrageous the situation was.
Additional videos released by Taylor’s attorneys on Sunday show two officers walking him around a winding hallway and into a room labeled “Weightroom.” He had a brief interaction with someone recording, who seemed to allege the officer was cutting up with the football players during the game.
It is still unclear why the officer handcuffed him. It is also unclear why they took him into a room that appeared to be locked after escorting him off the floor.
Taylor, who has been a basketball coach for 35 years, has been the head coach at Tuskegee since 2019.