According to a police report, the man millions of people saw getting tackled to the ground by Bobby Wagner during the Los Angeles Rams Monday Night Football game is claiming several injuries from the incident.
Alexander Joseph Taylor is claiming that he suffered a concussion, according to the Santa Clara Police Department. Injuries listed on his polcie report also included a headache and a burn on the inner bicep of his right arm, but it is unclear if that is due to Wagner’s tackle or the pink smoke flare the protestor was carrying.
Wagner was widely celebrated for chasing after Taylor who had run onto the field with a pink smoke bomb as some sort of protest. Several security officers were unable to catch Taylor who was eventually stopped when he felt what it was like to be tackled in the NFL.
“I was scared for my life, he could have had a bomb,” Greg Gaines said. “Bobby Wagner saved our lives.”
A representative of Taylor’s group, Direct Action Everywhere, deemed the encounter with the football players a “blatant assault,” TMZ reported.
Wagner stressed that he helped security tackle the protestor out of safety concerns.
“You don’t know what that fan got or what they’re doing,” Wagner said. “You see it all the time, and we don’t know what they’re carrying in their pockets, whatever that little smoke stuff is. But that [stuff] can be dangerous. … Security looked like it was struggling. So I was frustrated, so I took it out on the fan.”
The investigation is still ongoing and no charges have been made.
