By Joe Johnson
A youth football practice this week was interrupted by domestic violence when a coach was confronted on the playing field by a former girlfriend and her gun-brandishing father.
The incident happened early Tuesday evening at Satterfield Park off Cherokee Road in east Athens, where 33-year-old Travis Evans was coaching a youth football team.
According to police, the practice came to a halt when 34-year-old Raven Leighann Thrasher walked onto the field and began arguing with Evans about some keys that he supposedly had taken from her.
They formerly had lived together and had a daughter in common, police said.
When the couple broke up the previous weekend, Thrasher moved out of Evans’s home in Winterville and moved in with her parents on Noketchee Drive in Athens.
The woman called the police Tuesday morning to report that Evans had gone to her parent’s home and took some of her property. He counter-claimed that Thrasher had broken into his home and took his belongings. Neither party wanted to press charges.
As the confrontation at Satterfield Park escalated and became physical, police said, Evans suffered a bloody scratch on his neck and had a gun pointed at him by Thrasher’s 70-year-old father, Kenneth Thrasher.
A police officer noted in a report that when he arrived on the scene, about 30 people were “still actively struggling.”
Raven Thrasher was arrested and charged with simple battery under the state Family Violence Act, and Kenneth Thrasher was arrested for aggravated assault.
Both were later released upon posting bonds at the county jail.
Anyone who is in an abusive relationship can seek advice and support services by calling Project Safe's 24-hour hotline at (706) 543-3331, or by visiting http://www.project-safe.org
Sum people just ain't got no sense!