Local & State Headlines

Phoebe no longer using company for referees

• A recreation confrontation may have been exacerbated by the behavior of a referee who is also a magistrate.

J.D. Sumner

ALBANY — A hospital spokesperson says the organization has cut ties with a company that supplies referees for its competitive events a day after a referee is also a magistrate called police, contending he was threatened by a player during a flag football game.

Valerie Benton, spokesperson for Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital, said Wednesday that Phoebe has discontinued its contract after a Monday incident in which referee Jim Thurman, the chief magistrate of Lee County, told police he was threatened by a player had ejected during a flag football game.

Rusty Hayes was cited but not arrested for disorderly conduct, but the director of Phoebe Healthworks, the location of the incident, told police that he had had problems with Thurman since they first talked Monday and believed the magistrate’s “poor attitude” may have escalated the incident, according to police reports.

Thurman told police that during the game he ejected Hayes after two unsportsmanlike conduct penalties — a move that he told police prompted Hayes to charge at him and threaten him, police reports show.

Hayes told police that he did have a verbal altercation with Thurman over what he said were several bad calls, but Hayes maintained that he never charged, hit or tried to fight with Thurman.

Speaking by phone Wednesday, Hayes said that the whole situation was blown out of proportion by Thurman.

“I’ll admit that I was wrong to tell him that I’d beat him up and down the field,” Hayes said. “But calling the police, taking time away from serious cases out on the street for this was totally unwarranted.”

Hayes said that police told him that they would issue him what amounts to a traffic ticket to appease Thurman, who he says became beligerent to the officers.

Police reports show that officers did have to call for a supervisor to come to the scene during the incident.

Phoebe Healthworks Director Julian Maddox told police that Thurman appeared to have a poor attitude and that it may have contributed to the ruckus, the report said.

According to the report, after police arrived, Thurman attempted to tell the officers what to charge Hayes with and then he refused to use a form to write a statement.

Hayes says he plans to fight the citation in Dougherty Magistrate Court on Sept. 12.

“I think it says a lot that there was this type of incident and instead of throwing the player of the league, they got rid of the officials,” Hayes said. “That tells me a lot about the situation.”