Marquette guard Vander Blue has chosen to go to trial on charges that he punched a male student outside of the Qdoba restaurant at 803 N. 16th St. last fall, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports.
The incident occurred at 1:30 a.m. on October 24 and was reported to the Department of Public Safety later that day.
“A student reported being struck in the face with a closed fist by another student in Campus Town lot 2. (The Milwaukee Police Department) was contacted and will be citing the student suspect,” DPS’ incident report stated.
Blue, a freshman in the College of Communication, was later given a single citation for assault and battery.
Gerald Boyle, Blue’s defense attorney, told the Journal Sentinel the city offered to reduce the citation to disorderly conduct, but Blue and Boyle refused.
Judge Phillip Chavez set June 3 as the trial date for the municipal citation, and Blue has already pleaded not guilty, the Journal Sentinel reported.
Boyle told the Journal Sentinel the delay between the incident and court proceedings had nothing to do with the basketball season.
Kate Venne, director of university communication, said Marquette was aware of the incident at the time it occurred, and it was handed over to the student conduct process.
Boyle also told the Journal Sentinel that since only one punch was reportedly thrown in the incident, it should not count as battery.
According to court documents obtained by the Journal Sentinel, Blue got into an argument with the student at Qdoba and subsequently pushed the victim twice, once into a window, before punching him once in the face.
The documents state Blue walked into the Qdoba restaurant with teammate Darius Johnson-Odom and approached a booth containing two men and two women, the Journal Sentinel reported.
The victim told an MPD officer that Blue identified himself and began talking to the group. The victim admitted to police he poked fun at Blue’s surname, and told the officer he heard Blue tell Johnson-Odom he planned to hit the victim, the newspaper reported.
The victim said Blue wanted to take the dispute outside, and that is when Blue hit him.
The Journal Sentinel reported that in Blue’s statement, he told police the victim used a racial slur, though witnesses denied that occurred. Blue told police he inadvertently struck the victim as the victim was trying to push him.
