Hey Kilgore, see this?
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/121009dnmettimthomas.337c6828b.htmlPolice: Anti-gay slur from Dallas Mavericks forward Tim Thomas set off Denny's melee 1:30 PM CTDallas Mavericks player Tim Thomas is an assault suspect in a melee that occurred early today at a Denny's, according to witnesses and police records.
No arrests have been made.
The fracas occurred about 3 a.m. at the Denny’s in the 4400 block of North Central Expressway.
Thomas could not be reached for comment. The Mavericks said he would not make a scheduled afternoon appearance at Amazing Jake’s restaurant at Collin Creek Mall in Plano.
Donnie Nelson, the team's general manager and president of basketball operations, said media accounts of the matter had been "way, way overblown."
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Nelson disputed an allegation in a police report that Thomas had tossed a chair.
"What I can tell you is that Tim was not involved,'' he said. "He's 30 years old with a wife and kids. When the situation started to escalate, he left the property immediately. Certainly we're working with authorities and our security folks to get to the bottom of it. But this is something that's way, way, way overblown.
"Innocent until proven guilty in this country, last I checked.''
Police records give the following account:
Thomas, another man and three women entered the Denny’s. Damien Pettie, 29, recognized Thomas. He told police he addressed the basketball player by saying, “What’s up?” Thomas told him not to talk to him, using curse words and racial and anti-gay epithets. Pettie responded with profanity.
The man with Thomas then struck Pettie twice in the face, breaking his lip open.
“Then all parties within both groups began to throw chairs, knock over tables, and fight each other” until the store manager told them he was going call police.
A man identified as Thomas threw a chair that struck Moya Kissick, striking her in her left side.
Thomas and his group then left the restaurant before police arrived.
Pettie told The Dallas Morning News that someone else -- not Thomas -- threw the chair.
He said that when he and his friends passed by Thomas’ table and he addressed the player by saying, “What’s up?” Thomas responded that that he didn’t talk to “faggots.” The police report also quoted Pettie as saying Thomas used that term.
Pettie told The News he later passed Thomas’ table again, and that Thomas made another remark derogatory remark about gays.“I asked one of the guys, ‘What the hell did you say?’ ’’ Pettie said. “As Tim continued to instigate the situation, one of the guys hit me in my mouth. Another one of his friends hit me. They pushed me down onto a table.”
Pettie says he picked up a chair to defend himself. One of the men who hit him in the face then picked up a chair and threw it, he said. Pettie said he caught the chair, but not before it Kissick.
He said Thomas then yelled out that the police had been called and that it was time to leave.
“It was juvenile,” said Pettie.
“It was like a bunch of high school kids. It reminded me of high school. The popular kids picking on lower classmen. That’s how they acted. (Thomas) acted like a big bully kid in high school.
Pettie said that he is not gay, but that some of the friends who were with him are lesbian.
Colleen Kissick, 29, the daughter of the woman struck by the chair, said and her mother had been out celebrating her mother’s 65th birthday. They had just gotten their food when the fight erupted without warning.
“Everybody was throwing chairs and flipping tables,” she said. “It was just like an explosion.”
Kissick, who called 911, says the man who struck Pettie got into a Mercedes with a woman. She says the woman threatened to kill her if she gave police the car's license plate number.
“I don’t understand why grown men would act like that in a public place,” Colleen Kissick said.
One of the witnesses to the encounter was Roger Emrich, sports anchor for KRLD (1080 AM).
Emrich did not return a call for comment. Scott Braddock, a news anchor with the station, said Emrich would take part in a 2:30 p.m. broadcast interview about what took place.
“He was at the restaurant and he’s got his version of events that he will be sharing,” Braddock said
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