Update on Disputed Public Documents Related to Ted Agu Death in University of California Football
August 25, 2016The Mother of All Class-Action Lawsuits Comes Down the Pike — Against Pop Warner Football
September 3, 2016
“Table of Contents of the New eBook ‘TED AGU PAPERS,” https://concussioninc.net/?p=11367
Amazon Kindle link: http://amzn.to/2aA2LDl.
by Irvin Muchnick
Sources close to head coach Sonny Dykes’ University of California-Berkeley football program have told Concussion Inc. that there is a 40-page transcript, in addition to a four-page summary, of the complaint lodged to campus police in March 2014 regarding the abusive methods of strength and conditioning assistant Damon Harrington — which appear to have contributed to the death a month earlier of a 21-year-old Golden Bears player, Ted Agu, during an extreme conditioning drill.
The police testimony by whistleblower player Joey Mahalic — made at the suggestion of Cal administrators — focused on the November 1, 2013, incident in which teammate J.D. Hinnant beat and concussed another teammate, Fabiano Hale, in retribution for Hale’s having skipped one of Harrington’s conditioning sessions the previous day.
This reporter is exploring a lawsuit in state court to compel production of the campus police report of Mahalic’s complaint. The university has claimed that the document is exempt from public disclosure under the California Public Records Act because it was generated by a law enforcement agency.
However, Concussion Inc.’s sources say both the 40-page transcript and the four-page summary were exhibits to Mahalic’s deposition in the Agu family’s wrongful death lawsuit against UC, which settled earlier this year for $4.75 million. Case law has established the general principle that depositions in court cases involving public agencies become public records at the conclusion of litigation.
We published a summary of the Mahalic deposition here at ConcussionInc.net, as well as the full transcript of the deposition in our new ebook THE TED AGU PAPERS: A Black Life That Mattered — And the Secret History of a Covered-Up Death in University of California Football. But our source for the transcript did not supply the exhibits. (See https://concussioninc.net/?p=10996.)
Meanwhile, the San Francisco Chronicle‘s coverage of Agu’s death, across more than two years, failed to relate it to allegations of Harrington’s role in the Hinnant-Hale incident until this summer, months after the Agu family’s settlement. Even then, the newspaper provided few details. Among the omitted details has been identifying Hinnant as the player who attacked Hale and whose criminal prosecution for the act was “deferred” by the Alameda County district attorney.
The Chronicle also has reported that it acquired Mahalic’s 2014 police statement. But the newspaper has not published it. As soon as Concussion Inc. acquires it, we will publish it.
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“Explainer: How ‘Insider’ Access Made San Francisco Chronicle and Berkeley J-School Miss Real Story Behind Death of Cal Football’s Ted Agu,” https://concussioninc.net/?p=10931
Complete headline links to our Ted Agu series:https://concussioninc.net/?p=10877