Texas Tech Athletes arrested following Midland Scrimmage

Four Texas Tech football players were arrested early Sunday morning, March 25 for charges related to damaged property and civil disturbance. 

The individuals arrested were athletes, Christian Taylor, Jett Duffey, Desmon Smith, and Furqan Yusef Short were arrested outside of a local nightclub for charges related to property damage to cars and an apartment building as well as general civil disturbance within a crowd. These arrests occurred after the team held a spring scrimmage in Midland on Saturday, March 24. 

Texas Tech officers were dispatched to Bash Riprocks located at 2419 Main St. after receiving a call for a disturbance as well as a potentially armed individual at 1:54 a.m. Sunday morning. When officers arrived at the scene, a crowd of people were seen blocking the driveway and disrupting the flow of traffic.

Lieutenant Brady Cross spoke in a press conference about how there were 10 total arrests made; 8 of which were charged with disorderly conduct and 2 for disrupted property. Around two-dozen officers were deployed to deal with the surge of people as well as the K-9 unit. No gun had been found at the scene. 

Cross went on to compliment the work of the Lubbock Police Department for acting swiftly and effectively given the amount of people within the initial crowd. 

“I hope at the end of the day the public knows and understands that we are there to respond to calls for service and keep, overall, everyone safe.” Cross said. “And at times what it takes to keep everyone safe is to take people to jail.”

Cross explained that police and the athletics legal teams were in contact and made sure to remind the athletics department that the football players involved would not receive special treatment.

 Zelena Garcia, a student at Texas Tech University, spoke about how one of the football players had intentionally slapped the windshield of her car. According to Garcia, the player had slapped her car twice, causing the windshield to crack and spiderweb. 

“Everybody was just kind of like screaming in shock,” she said. “Not like terror, but like shock that he was able to break my windshield.”

Police in the area had seen the commotion and were able to arrest the individual right away as seen by the camera footage released by the Lubbock Police Department. 

“I'm glad [the police] were there because it wasn't like a our word against theirs, because it was caught all on camera.” Garcia said.

The individual responsible for the damage to Garcia’s car was Texas Tech linebacker, Christian Taylor. It was after Taylor’s initial arrest that the crowd became more agitated. Quarterback Jett Duffey was also arrested for damaging property to an apartment complex at the scene. Defensive back Desmon Smith, received medical care after being bit by one of the K-9 units; he was later taken to the Lubbock County Detention Center.

Texas Tech Athletics released a statement offered by Matt Dowdy later Sunday Morning: “Texas Tech Athletics was made aware this morning of an incident involving members of our football program. We are still looking into the matter at this time.”