An ugly incident earlier in the week is going to result in a Florida youth coach facing charges for child abuse, the Osceola County Sheriff’s office decided Friday.
Savannah (Ga.) Gators coach Gerrel Williams slapped the child in the helmet Monday at the 2020 American Youth Football National Championships in Kissimmee, Fl. The division was for 7-year-olds and under!
After yelling at his player, Williams struck him a second time with enough force that the child lost his balance and fell to the ground.
Williams has since been expelled from the league and not able to attend any games.
According to the incident report, the child’s mother declined to press charges against Williams.
“The Osceola County Sheriff’s Office along with our local state attorney’s office have reviewed this case and the decision has been made that charges for child abuse will be filed, regardless of parent’s decision not to press charges,” Maj. Jacob Ruiz said in a statement Friday. “The actions of this person are despicable and there is zero-tolerance when it comes to the abuse of a child.”
Williams issued an apology on Facebook
“I’m gonna apologize for my actions … At the end of the day, I am a man. I aint gonna make no excuses for what I did. I was wrong. I shouldn’t have disciplined him … hit him in public. I shoulda waited ‘til we got back. At the end of the day, I apologize to him, the kids, the city … and my family back at home. I do apologize. There’s no excuse for my actions. He forgave me and his parents have forgiven me, so nobody else should be bashing me,” the coach said.
American Youth Football released the following statement: “We have been working with local law enforcement, this type of behavior is unacceptable and is not tolerated.”
Williams, who also worked as a detention center counselor, has since been fired from his job there, the Chatham County Sheriff’s Office told WJCL in Savannah, Ga.
“Over the past two days we have received numerous messages on social media regarding the actions of a Savannah-area youth football coach that was caught on video and has been shared widely on social media,” the Savanah police wrote on Facebook.
“We thank you all for passing along this information for our detectives to look into. We want to assure everyone that we did immediately look into this and quickly learned that this incident occurred while the team was out of town. After contacting the police department in the city the team was at when the incident occurred, we learned that their detectives had already begun investigating the coach’s actions. Once again, we thank you all for contacting SPD and ask you to continue to contact the department anytime you see anything in this city that needs officer attention.”
Star athletes weighed in with outrage.
“Ain’t no way!!! Couldn’t be my kid,” LeBron James wrote in an Instagram story Wednesday night with a screenshot of the video. “Hell, if I there and it’s not even my kid we gone have more than words for sure.”
IF* that’s my child. I’ve got to have him, I’m going to carry his punk a**. 🤬🤬🤬🤬🤬 https://t.co/yi0OnrTRlS
— shannon sharpe (@ShannonSharpe) December 10, 2020