Two CSU Jocks Face Ethnic Attack Charge
Thursday, April 16, 1998
DENVER, April 16 (UPI) Denver police say two white college football players face charges of ethnic intimidation in an attack on an African taxi driver. Police say both men, members of Colorado State University's 1997 football team, hurled racial slurs at Gebreselassie Zemariame before allegedly beating him during an argument over the route he was taking early Wednesday. The episode is Denver's third reported attack on an African immigrant taxi driver in three weeks. Police say Zemariame, an Ethiopian immigrant, told them he picked up Robert Cieslinski and Steven Trammell, both of Fort Collins, and two female companions near downtown Denver. They asked to be taken to an Englewood hotel, the cabbie claimed, but one began questioning the route he was taking. He stopped his taxi and demanded advance payment, at which time both men started using racial insults, he said. According to a police report, Zemariame said one of the two men beat him. But Cieslinski and both women told The Denver Post they neither beat the cabbie nor hurled racial slurs at him. Zemariame was not seriously injured.
Cieslinski and Trammell, who both played defensive tackle, were arrested shortly after the alleged incident and jailed. Taxi driver Moustapha Marouf was beaten to death March 29 in a dispute over a parking space. Another cabbie, Kahsay Araya, was slashed by two passengers he drove from Denver to Colorado Springs five days later.
Copyright 1998 by United Press International.
Thank you for visiting the Coloradans United Against Hatred Website