High School Football Referees Arrested in Middle of Game After Trying to Throw Cop Out of Game

It’s common to see players, coaches and even fans thrown out of sports games, but very rarely do the the ones making the calls get tossed.

That’s exactly what happened at a high school football game in Covington, La. Two referees were arrested mid-game after arguing with a police officer who was trying to control the crowd noise. Christopher Gambino and  James Radcliffe were each charged with one count of public intimidation for their involvement with the officer during the third quarter of the game Friday night, according to WWL-TV.

The incident began when the chain crew got into a verbal confrontation with fans on the sideline. The members of the chain crew were volunteers, and were supporters of one school playing in the game, and the fans were supporters of the other school playing. The two sides began arguing, the chain crew asked the game officials to make the fans move and the referees got into it with the fans.

That’s when police stepped in, according to witnesses.

Covington police told game officials they would handle crowd control, and the game officials should return to managing the game. Apparently, the game officials didn’t take to kindly to that idea, because one of them tried to throw an officer out of the game.

The entire brouhaha ended when two of the officials were taken away in a Covington Police squad car, and the game resumed after the 25-minute delay.

Photo via Facebook/WWLTV