Tallahassee Police To ESPN: Go Fuck Yourselves

It's Christmas Eve, which means it's the perfect time to dump a nasty story you hope the media will ignore! And that's exactly what Tallahassee police did today while flipping two big ol' birds at ESPN.

Paula Lavigne, a reporter with Outside The Lines, dropped a public records request to Tallahassee police in September, asking for all incident reports involving a long list of names that appear to be FSU athletes. Police said they filled that request, and in the process, found one case where they had evidence that was " not immediately processed"—for nearly three years. So before ESPN broke the story, police released the reports from that case, blasting them out to their media list and posting them online. They also released a copy of Lavigne's public records request, essentially tipping off everyone to what she's working on. They also left her contact information in the copy they released. (Surely #FSUTwitter, the Gamergate of college football, will use that knowledge to wish Lavigne a happy holiday.)

It's perfectly fair to assume that they dumped all this on Christmas Eve because they knew reporters weren't going to go through it and readers weren't going to read it, and if that's the case, they're actually right! We'll give you a full recap after the holiday, but for now here are the reports. The case involves a then-FSU player, Demonte McAllister, admitting he picked up a crack-smoking prostitute; that woman later banging on doors saying she was raped; and DNA swabs being left untested for nearly three years, keeping prosecutors from getting the evidence they said they would need to file charges.

Draw your own conclusions.

Image via Associated Press