Wednesday, October 22, 2008

San Jose Mercury: Cal football player, ex-teammate arrested on suspicion of robbery

By Matt Krupnick

A Cal football player and a former teammate have been arrested on suspicion of robbery, three weeks after a pair of assailants burst into a dormitory room and robbed the occupants at gunpoint.  Gary Doxy, a junior who was kicked off the team over the summer, and R.J. Garrett, both 21, were arrested by University of California-Berkeley police Monday. Both were arraigned on robbery and attempted robbery charges, and Garrett faces an additional charge for possessing a stolen gun unrelated to the robbery.  The men were due to enter pleas in court today.   The university said Tuesday that police found the men with property stolen during the brazen Sept. 30 incident on UC-Berkeley's Clark Kerr Campus. The robbers carried BB guns and took a laptop computer and a wallet, police said.

Police said the incident apparently was prompted by racist comments made at a party by a drunken member of the men's crew team; the rower has since been suspended from the team. An African-American athlete at the party was offended by the comments, police said, which led to the robbery as retaliation.  The two 18-year-old robbery victims were not involved in the party incident, the university said, and were targeted by mistake.  Detectives had been focusing their investigation on Cal athletes since the robbery, which set the university community on edge and led to increased security.  Doxy, a Long Beach native, was dismissed from the team over the summer for unspecified rule violations. Garrett, a sophomore, was removed from the team Tuesday, the university said. Neither man could be reached for comment.

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