Police: Coach who kicked Black Kansas cheerleader off squad says she’s being harassed
Ottawa Police are investigating reports of harassing tweets and calls to the Ottawa University cheer coach after she was accused of a racist rant about a Black cheerleader’s hair.
Police said the coach, Casey Jamerson of Lawrence, filed a report on Jan. 22, claiming that she was being harassed by people making crude, abusive or threatening comments.
Police declined to point to any specific tweets, but none of the comments “directly threatened her life,” said Lt. J.W. Hawkins. Still, he said, using an electronic device, such as a computer or a phone, to harass an individual is a misdemeanor crime. A person could face less than a year in jail or up to a $1,000 fine.
“Right now this is more of an information report. We need to develop exactly who we are looking into,” Hawkins said. “Just because a person’s name is on a social media account does not mean that is the person responsible for the post.”
The tweets stem from a Jan. 6 incident at Ottawa University, about 50 miles southwest of Kansas City.
Talyn Jefferson, a junior from Lawrence, told The Star that at cheer practice that day, she refused to remove a hair bonnet because she worried her long braids might hit a teammate in the face. Her refusal, she said, led to a racist rant from her coach about her hair. She was then kicked out of practice — and then kicked off the squad.
A friend of Jefferson’s tweeted about it, and others criticized the coach for her statements about Black people’s hairstyles.
In the tweet, Jefferson tells her friend that the coach told her, “You shouldn’t have gotten 7 foot long hair then! She proceeds to tell me that my box braids are a hindrance to my performance and they are not collegiate and I never should have gotten them in the first place.”
Through the university, Jamerson, the coach, declined to speak with The Star.
“In what seems to have become an unfortunate trend in today’s society, social media is replete with misinformation regarding this situation,” Scott Albright, a university spokesman, said in an emailed statement to The Star. “As a consequence, Ms. Jamerson has been subjected to unfortunate vitriol and some harassing and threatening comments online, in email, and by phone. Some of the threats were concerning enough that she has notified the appropriate legal authorities.”
Jefferson, 20, who had been on the cheer team for more than two years, told The Star that she had never intended her story to end up on Twitter but was glad that it became public.
