Party guests speak out about brawl involving Kentucky football players, how school handled it
Olivia Tutt says she was punched by a Kentucky football player during a March melee off-campus, but that university investigators showed more interest in the presence of alcohol than an assault on a student.
More than five months later, some of the events of that night are still in dispute. Six Kentucky players have been charged with 1st-degree burglary — legally defined as unlawful entry with the intent to commit a crime — and one of them, sophomore safety DeVito Tisdale, has been charged with wanton endangerment for allegedly wielding a gun.
Interviewed as part of Kentucky’s Office of Student Conduct’s investigation of an incident in the early hours of March 7, Tutt said she “blew up” at university administrators Ellen Kilgore and Nikki Thomas because, “they were more concerned that people were drinking than girls were getting beat up.”
Tutt said she was a designated driver on the night of the party, stone sober, and accused the Kentucky administration of attempting to "turn around the story" to punish the fraternity Alpha Sigma Phi while generally absolving the football players who crashed its party, allegedly with flying fists.
The players have pled not guilty to the charges, have claimed through intermediaries to have been provoked by racial taunts, but have been suspended from the team for a second time over this incident while awaiting the judgment of a grand jury.
Four of the people who attended the birthday party that began on March 6 and ended with police responding to an emergency call described a brief brawl that purportedly left one victim so badly beaten he returned to his family home to recuperate while numerous others — both male and female — received minor bruises.
The investigative report filed by Lexington police on March 8 lists 10 victims but does not detail any injuries.
Two of the partygoers interviewed by The Courier Journal were members of the Alpha Sigma Phi fraternity and asked to remain anonymous for fear of retaliation and further discipline from the university. (The fraternity is currently serving a year’s probation for a variety of violations, including misuse of alcohol, hazing and failure to comply with the university’s COVID guidelines.)
The two witnesses who spoke on the record were female guests at the party, Tutt and Elon Michael.
What was Andru Phillips' involvement?
Tutt, a Kentucky junior from Nashville, Tenn., was one of the 10 victims listed in the police report, three of whom are women. In addition to burglary and wanton endangerment, the report lists fourth-degree assault as a potential offense. Tutt says she was punched twice — once on the right arm, once on the hip — and claims her assailant was Kentucky cornerback Andru Phillips.
“I was kind of standing in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen,” Tutt said. “The guys had the lights turned off and all of a sudden the door, they broke it open. And boys just started running.
“I turned my (phone) flashlight on because I couldn’t see anything and one of the guys ran up to me and took my phone and threw it on the ground. I assumed he thought I was recording. By the time I picked up my phone off the ground and turned around, one of my friends, Ty Burke, was being dragged across the living room floor. There were like six guys on top of him, going at his face.
“I ran in to push people off of him. One of the guys was Andru Phillips, who turned and hit me twice. By that time, people started running out through the front door and I’m like screaming like everyone else to get out. It was very quick, but it seemed like it was forever.”
Asked how she was able to identify Phillips, Tutt said when the lights came on, he looked at her as she continued to scream at him to leave. She said she stared at his face for about 15 seconds and matched what she recalled to photographs friends found afterward.
“He was the only person I could confirm,” she said.
Phillips’ attorney, Charles Grundy, insists his client “didn’t even arrive on the scene until everything was over,” that he carried no weapon, hit no one, and that his case “should obviously be dismissed.” Libby Hogan, Kentucky’s assistant director of Student Conduct, arrived at a similar conclusion after meeting with the player, notifying Phillips in a letter dated April 23 that he would not be held responsible for a code violation and that witnesses had confirmed “they didn’t see him engaged in fighting.”
Asked to reconcile that assertion with Tutt’s account of Phillips punching her, Kentucky spokesman Jay Blanton declined to discuss specifics, citing federal student privacy rights. The Courier Journal requested an interview with Kilgore, Kentucky's student responsibility coordinator, but the university instead scheduled an interview with another Kentucky administrator that has not yet taken place.
“However, we can assure you that the types of allegations you are asking about are taken very seriously,” Blanton said. “Further, the Office of Student Conduct reviewed all possible leads in the case you are inquiring about.”
Lexington police, however, were not as quick to close the case. They continued to follow leads for more than five months before filing charges against Phillips, Tisdale, offensive lineman Reuben Adams, running back Robert McClain, receiver Earnest Sanders IV and defensive back Joel Williams. Neither Phillips nor any of his teammates were charged with assault by police.
“On our part, it was just an ongoing investigation,” said police spokesman Sgt. Donnell Gordon, himself a former Kentucky and Louisville football player. “It just took time to put all the pieces together before the charges were actually presented. … For us, there’s no timetable. We investigate it until all the pieces come together and then we place the charges.”
Vito Tisdale's gun charge
The Courier Journal has sought copies of any additional incident reports from police dispatched to the site of the party, relevant police body camera footage and recordings of any 911 calls from the address on March 6 or 7. Those requests were denied in deference to the ongoing investigation.
One of the fraternity members, speaking on the condition of anonymity, complained police were slow to respond to the group's concerns despite being presented with detailed descriptions and photographs of bruised victims. He said he had recognized Tisdale on sight.
“He has a big name around Kentucky, so I knew exactly who he was,” he said.
According to the fraternity member's account, Tisdale entered the house, pushed him up against the wall and then punched his girlfriend in the face. As Tisdale tangled with other partygoers, the fraternity member said he could see the handle or magazine of his gun as his shirt rose up while throwing punches.
That account echoed one articulated at Tisdale's June 7 student conduct hearing and deemed inconsistent by a hearing board that ultimately concluded, "there was not a preponderance of evidence to say with certainty that DeVito had a gun."
Tutt, Michael and a third partygoer who asked for anonymity all said they did not see a gun during the fight. The hearing board did find Tisdale responsible for "harm or threat of harm," a violation of Kentucky's student code of conduct, placed him on probation, required him to meet with a counselor to discuss conflict resolution and anger management and ordered him to write research and reflection papers.
The arrival of Denny Butler
Denny Butler, a former Louisville police sergeant and state legislator, has started a GoFundMe on behalf of “six innocent U of K football players,” and says he persuaded Tisdale to take a polygraph test to discredit the weapons charge.
“I was called in to help over concern for one of the players, Mr. Tisdale, and the allegation of him having a gun,” Butler said Tuesday during an appearance on Kentucky Sports Radio. “The coach that called me felt like he was telling the truth, and they didn’t know where to turn. They just saw that the stories weren’t adding up and when he called me, I asked if he would be willing to talk to me, and we went and had a conversation and I too felt like Mr. Tisdale was telling the truth, so he agreed to take a polygraph on Saturday and took one from a retired FBI agent. He passed the polygraph confirming he did not have a gun.”
Butler’s GoFundMe page describes a handful of players — all of them African-American — arriving at the party to racist taunts and then leaving, only to return with reinforcements.
What we still don't know
The precise number of players and their companions who entered the house uninvited is unclear, but one of the fraternity members estimated there were about 15, and Michael said there were "way more than six."
Though two of the individuals Michael identified specifically are not members of the Kentucky team, Butler's GoFundMe page says warrants were executed on the phones of 12 Kentucky players and that the number of players who were identified had initially been 20.
During a campus disciplinary hearing, one of the fraternity members accused a Kentucky player who has not been charged with assaulting Burke. According to the fraternity member, an attorney then produced a document that said the player was in quarantine and, therefore, could not have been present.
“I firmly believe (the player) was breaking COVID quarantine and in my house assaulting my friend,” the fraternity member said.
“I just remember everybody getting the crap beat out of them,” said Michael, who attended the party but says she was not personally punched and was not among the listed victims. "It was really scary. It said in one of the articles that they tried to make it a race thing, but I’m African-American and I’ve never had a problem with racial issues (with the fraternity).
“You have a party at your house and some random people come, it’s like, ‘I don’t know you. I don’t want you in my house.’ You want to protect your stuff. It wasn’t about them being African-American. It was strictly about them not being invited.”
Other news: Dan Berezowitz removed from Kentucky football staff following June arrest
What next?
Kentucky head coach Mark Stoops addressed the case without prompting during his Monday news conference, saying he stood by his players “until I have the evidence that tells me otherwise.”
With conflicting accounts of what transpired, and bruises long since healed, grand jurors will have to weigh the credibility of the witnesses in deciding whether to send the case to trial.
Braxton Crenshaw, Adams’ attorney, said he makes it a policy not to discuss cases in the press. James Lowry, who represents four of the defendants, did not respond to repeated interview requests.
The two fraternity members who spoke to The Courier Journal on the condition of anonymity said they would be willing to repeat their claims under oath in open court. Olivia Tutt, however, is not sure she’s ready to relive her experience by testifying.
“At this point, I don’t know if I want to do that,” she said. “I just want to push it away.”
Jon Hale contributed to this story.
Follow Tim Sullivan on Twitter: @TimSullivan714