Report: Seahawks didn’t interview witnesses to alleged Clark incident
May 5, 2015, 4:09 PM | Updated: Apr 8, 2016, 10:50 am
Seahawks draft pick Frank Clark was arrested and jailed in November on a domestic-violence charge that was later reduced to disorderly conduct. (AP)
(AP)
Two women who were staying in an adjacent hotel room during the alleged domestic-violence incident involving Seahawks draft pick Frank Clark have shared additional details with The Seattle Times and told the paper that the team never spoke with them as part of its investigation.
Geoff Baker’s story in Tuesday’s edition of The Times includes Lis Babson’s and Kristie Colie’s accounts of what they heard from the room next door during the alleged incident – “loud banging, yelling and screaming” – and then what they saw once one of them banged on Clark’s door until he opened it: “She looked unconscious,” Colie said in the story, referring to Clark’s then-girlfriend. “She looked like she was knocked out, and then she started to move slowly.”
In public comments both Friday night following the selection and again Monday on 710 ESPN Seattle about their decision to draft Clark, the Seahawks have maintained that they felt comfortable doing so only after their investigation led them to believe that he didn’t strike his then-girlfriend during that November incident, which led to his dismissal from the Michigan football team as well as a domestic-violence charge that was later reduced.
General manager John Schneider and coach Pete Carroll described that investigation as extensive, saying they spoke to several people with knowledge of the alleged incident other than Clark himself, though they conceded when asked Friday that they didn’t speak directly to the alleged victim.
According to The Times, the Seahawks said in a statement to the paper that the team looked at the police report and conducted “confidential interviews with people directly involved with the case” but that the team didn’t “speak directly to any witnesses from that night” other than Clark.
Schneider said Friday, after Seattle chose Clark in the second round, that the Seahawks spoke with counselors “that were involved with the two of them.” Carroll then said the alleged victim corroborated “to the way the case was handled at the end in a supportive fashion. So that was clear by her statements and things.”
Local columnists Larry Stone of The Seattle Times and Dave Boling of The News Tribune joined “Brock and Salk” Tuesday for a roundtable discussion on the Seahawks’ selection of Clark. Here is a link to that discussion.
