COLLEGE STATION, Texas -- A Texas A&M football player
arrested on a drunken driving charge says he didn't yell racial
slurs outside a fast-food restaurant as alleged in a police report,
his attorney says.
Geoff Hangartner was charged early Monday with driving while
intoxicated after police said they followed his vehicle from the
restaurant to a nearby home where he failed a field sobriety test.
Teammate Cole Smith, who was in the vehicle, was cited for public
intoxication.
"Geoff completely denies making any kind of racial epitaph,"
his attorney, Jim James, said in a story in Thursday's
Bryan-College Station Eagle. "He finds any kind of racial slur
absolutely abhorrent. My client did not make any kind of racial
comment and did not exit the vehicle."
Restaurant employees called police to the restaurant just before
1 a.m., saying two white men were shouting racial slurs at black
passengers in another car in the drive-thru line, according to
court records.
College Station police Lt. Mark Langwell said one of the players
got out of the sport utility and began yelling at the car's driver.
Hangartner told police Smith had gotten into an argument with the
car's driver, but would not say what was said.
The people inside the car told police they wanted to press
charges based on the racially charged verbal attack, which a police
officer, who was across the street, said he could hear, according
to a written affidavit.
Hangartner will be a senior in the fall. He has started at
center for the past two years and earned third-team All Big 12
honors. Smith, who will be a junior, has appeared in one game in
2003.