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When you see the headline "UGA football player assists in Athens strip club brawl," you're going to click. Does that make it clickbait? Maybe, but that doesn't bait can't be damn tasty sometimes. Today, we determine just how Georgia it is to expose yourself in an Athens strip club and wind up bound and beat up on the sidewalk. As always, we rely on the Stipe-Ping Pyramid of Georgianity to guide us.
Question 1: Did the crime in question involve a vehicle? On the surface, the answer to this question is "no," since the events in question took place in and directly outside of a a strip club. But look closer:
DeBell "carried Kirkland out of the bar by his belt and collar and had placed him on the sidewalk outside the front doorway," according to the police report.
If we define a vehicle as a means of transporting things from one place to another, then, yes, there WAS a vehicle at play here: Georgia lineman Zach DeBell. He may not be street legal, but he counts, and there's no way Kirkland had a license to operate this particular vehicle. (Otherwise he'd have ended up in Auburn.) A start this strong deserves an initial rating of CHURCH.
Question 2: How Georgia is the arrestee's name? Per Spencer Hall, Joseph William Kirkland is not a particularly Georgia name unless the arrestee went by Billy or JW. You might feel comfortable assuming that he did, in fact, use one of these names, but this is science. We rely on hard evidence. The rating stays at CHURCH.
Question 3: What was the state of the arrestee's hair and dress?
Getting your ass whooped out of the strip club for exposing yourself to a dancer is no reason to let your hair look a mess in your mugshot. You worked hard to get that part just how you like it. Red gingham shirt, of course, because you want the world to know you're a Dawg no matter what. One could argue that he's got it buttoned a little low, but, well, this gentleman's not here because he's good at keeping covered up. Let's go ahead and bump this up to low-level CROAKIES. With a little sleep, buddy could show up at a Georgia tailgate and fit in just fine.
Question 4: Are there other factors which enhance or decrease the Georgianity of the crime?
When the police got to Mr. Kirkland, he was lying on the sidewalk, face down, with his shoes removed and his ankles bound together with his own shoelaces. Who could have left him like this?
There was no mention in a police incident report about who tied the customer's ankles together.
It's official: Athens has its own Spider-Man. Oh, and the arrestee also got punched in the face by the strip club's bouncer while he was on the ground, so the bouncer got arrested as well. And he had weed on him. This crime is so Georgia it should be wearing a Tom Glavine shirsey. Congratulations, Mr. Kirkland: you've gone full HERSCHEL.