Another New Berkeley Campus Police Document Surfaces: Assistant Trainer Told Cop He Didn’t Know If He ‘Was Allowed to Discuss’ Ted Agu’s ‘Medical Status’

PREVIOUSLY:

“University of Oklahoma Athletic Trainer: From the Moment of Ted Agu’s Death, Cal Football Staff Feared Implications of a Finding of Sickling Collapse, Instead of Coronary,” March 25, 2019, https://concussioninc.net/?p=13743

“‘Inadvertently’ Omitted Documents in California Public Records Act Case Show Berkeley Football Team Doctor Casey Batten — Point Person in the Ted Agu Sickle Cell Trait Death Cover-Up — Corresponding With Chief Campus Counsel,” April 1, 2019, https://concussioninc.net/?p=13745

Complete headline links to our series on the Ted Agu death cover-up (beginning November 2013 — before Agu’s death): https://concussioninc.net/?p=10877

by Irvin Muchnick

The contents of the secret 141-page Berkeley campus police binder that Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey S. Brand ruled the University of California can keep secret under the state Public Records Act continue to dribble out to Concussion Inc. from campus sources.

The resulting new nuggets of information simultaneously underscore the poor decision by the judge and add to the evidence of a cover-up by Cal football and the university in the 2014 death of Ted Agu, from a sickle cell trait-associated collapse during an extreme conditioning drill under Damon Harrington, the strength and conditioning assistant for head coach Sonny Dykes.

The newest document obtained by Concussion Inc. appears to correspond with chapter E of the disputed binder, which according to the table of contents is “Interview with Michael Jones,” an assistant athletic trainer. The text of the table of contents, which we obtained and published last year, is again reproduced at the bottom of this article. We are preparing this new acquired document for upload and public viewing.

The document is a summary, written on February 24, 2014, by Detective Harry Bennigson of the UC Berkeley campus police, of his February 12 interview of Jones, five days after Agu died. Bennigson writes in part:

“I asked JONES if he was aware of any medical condition with AGU. JONES told me that he knew of AGU’s medical status but he did know if he was allowed to talk about it.”

In context, it appears that Bennigson intended to write that Jones “did not” know if he was allowed to talk about it. We now know of widespread knowledge of Agu’s sickle cell trait on the Cal football staff, and the communication of this clinical fact to campus police officers and the paramedics who responded to the 911 call after Agu fatally collapsed.

Dr. Casey Batten, the football team physician, concealed the information from the Alameda County medical examiner, Dr. Thomas Beaver, and steered Beaver in the direction of an incorrect finding that Agu died because of heart failure.

=====

Table of Contents of the “binder”

A  Initial UCPD report and supplements

B  Supplement autopsy

C  Miscellaneous supplements/documents

D  Interview with Damon Harrington

E  Interview with Michael Jones

F  Interview with Austin Hinder

G  Interview with Drake Whitehurst

H  Interview with Daniel Lasco

I  Interview with Joey Mhalic [sic]

J  Interview with Michael Jones transcripts

K  Interview with Robert Jackson transcripts

L  Interview with Drake Whitehurst transcripts

M  Interview with Damon Harrington transcripts#1

N  Interview with Damon Harrington transcripts#2

O  Interview with Austin Hinder

P  Final autopsy report by Dr. Beaver