Former WU basketball great argued with campus police over pot charges

Three 18-year-old non-students have been charged with possession of marijuana-1st offense and resisting police after a run-in with police resulted in a Winthrop athletics Hall of Famer cursing at Winthrop officers, according to a campus police report.

Ned Tyson Waterman, who is currently listed as the head basketball coach for the Rock Hill school, Believe Prep Academy, cursed “numerous times” with a Winthrop police officer after the officer had arrested three individuals, according to the report. Waterman is described as being the coach of at least one individual.

Waterman played men’s basketball at Winthrop when he attended the school between 1996 and 2000. After leading the Eagles to back-to-back Big South Conference titles and finishing fourth on the Winthrop all-time scoring list with 1,461 points, he played professionally in Sweden after graduation and was then inducted into the Winthrop Hall of Fame in 2008.

At approximately 10 p.m. last Friday night, a Winthrop police officer responded to Wofford Hall in reference to the smell of marijuana that was coming from outside of the building. The report says the officer observed four males walking away from the area that the odor was coming from. When the officer attempted to make contact with the subjects, they then began to flee on foot as far as the DiGiorgio Campus Center lawn.

When Winthrop police made contact with one of the subjects, the others stopped fleeing. The officer observed a strong odor of marijuana coming from all four subjects, according to the report. Upon further investigation, the officer located a plastic bag containing a tenth of a gram of marijuana on the route of which the subjects took while fleeing the officer.

While three males were adults, the last one was a juvenile, who was given a juvenile summons for possession of marijuana- 1st offense.

As Winthrop officers were escorting the three adult subjects into patrol cars, they were intercepted by Waterman, who began to argue with an officer about taking the subjects to jail.

The report says that Waterman continued to argue and began to “escalate his tone and demeanor, becoming belligerent.” At one point, Waterman threatened to get the officers fired for making the arrests, insisting that because he was a criminology major from Winthrop University, he knew the rules of engagement.

Although one of the officers tried to explain to Waterman that he had probable cause to arrest the subjects, Waterman responded by saying, “cause they run, cause they see a bunch of white cops? Absolutely they going to run.”

Just before the subjects were transported to Rock Hill City jail, Waterman then apologized for arguing.

All four subjects were transported from Winthrop University.