NAACP files complaint against Florida police after brawl at youth basketball game

A brawl at a high school basketball game in Florida led the NAACP to file a complaint on behalf of a parent accused of punching a coach during the melee.

The brawl broke out during a game on Sept. 7 between Ida Baker and Dunbar high schools at Mariner High School in Cape Coral, according to WINK News.

Video shared by NBC2 News shows what appear to be more than a dozen players tackling each other and throwing punches on the court. Some players fall to the ground in the middle of the fight, while others form a circle around the outside. At one point, a parent came down from the stands and punched one of the coaches in the face, according to the news station.

James Muwakkil, president of the Lee County NAACP, told McClatchy News that the parent, David Church, was charged with battery after he was accused of punching the coach in the face. Church, along with the NAACP, has filed a complaint against the Cape Coral Police Department, saying that Church also wanted to press charges against the coach, who he says hit him first. Church says a a police officer didn’t allow him to press his own charges.

“I… explained to the officer that my son and I (were) assaulted and that (there) were multiple videos of the incident,” the complaint says. “I informed the officer that I wanted to press charges and he didn’t respond.”

Muwakkil said the brawl began when a player for one of the teams used a racial slur toward Church’s son, who is on the other team.

Church was later allowed to press charges at the police station after members of the NAACP accompanied him, Muwakkil said.

The coach did not respond to a request for comment from McClatchy News . The Cape Coral Police Department declined to comment on the matter.

Muwakkil said ideally the charges against Church will be be dropped.

But he said it was important for the NAACP to file the complaint because historically, when there is an altercation between a white and Black person, the Black person has often taken the brunt of the punishment.

“That can’t be a continuing process,” he said. “That can’t be the norm, where a white and a Black (man) get into it and the Black (man) is automatically assumed guilty and the white (man) has the last word.”

Cape Coral is about 160 miles northwest of Miami.

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