St. Joseph County Prosecutor Ken Cotter says he won’t charge Notre Dame Football Coach Marcus Freeman with battery after a confrontation Freeman had at his son’s wrestling tournament.
Video surveillance captured the Jan. 3 incident at the exit doors to the Mishawaka High School gymnasium and Mishawaka police interviewed witnesses.
After reviewing the police investigation, Cotter says he’s concluded that Freeman may have inadvertently touched a New Prairie assistant wrestling coach during an argument but there’s not enough evidence to prove battery in a court of law.
Freeman told detectives he had been leaving the gym with his son, a Penn High School wrestler, when he stopped to tell the New Prairie assistant coach to stop talking about his son to other wrestlers. When asked whether he might have inadvertently touched the coach, Freeman said he did not know.
The coach told police that Freeman had given him a “two handed push” that caused him to stumble backwards. He also told police that he believed Freeman was “rich” and that he planned to hire an attorney.
In interviews with police, two Mishawaka High School employees described the interaction as coming “chest to chest” but denied that anything like a push, shove or blow was made.
