JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — In addition to viral arrest videos taking place during the game, a man has been also accused of striking a police horse following the Georgia-Florida game Saturday, according to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office.
Emanuel Jones, 26, was charged with touch/strike/causing harm to a police animal, a felony, and misdemeanor resisting an officer without violence and disorderly intoxication.
The report said as fans were being ordered to exit the street and use the sidewalks around 8:30 a.m., JSO had multiple bicycles and uniformed officers in the street forming a line near Union Street to not allow people through and out of the road.
Jones walked past the "very clear line formed," the report said and walked between the four police horses in the street. An officer observed Jones getting close to Police Horse Ace and then saw Ace's head "suddenly jerk up and to the right" the report stated.
The report redacts the exact moment when the horse was struck.
At a press conference Tuesday to address videos of officers striking men in two separate arrests, Jacksonville Sheriff T.K. Waters said a horse was punched. He said 128 officers and 12 supervisors were deployed for the game, which saw about 70,000 people descend on downtown Jacksonville. The event in total resulted in eight arrests and 35 ejections.
"This was a different game. They’re not always like this," Waters said. "We had a horse punched in the face."
The report said Jones was "shadow boxing and swinging his arms around." An officer struck Jones and officers were eventually able to subdue him and place him in handcuffs. The report said Jones was left with “a small abrasion underneath his right eye.”
