Like most prospective Yale students, Amy Kaplan came to Bulldog Days to get a glimpse of the University’s academic and social scene. Thanks to a freshman and some locals, she also saw a boxing match.
Kaplan said she saw Nathan Thorne ’05 and two female friends leave Lanman-Wright Hall and make their way to the gate on High Street at about 2:30 a.m. Monday morning. That’s where they met up with 19-year-old Bridgeport resident Ivan Ortiz and several other non-Yalie local residents, Yale Police Lt. Michael Patten said.
Thorne exchanged words with Ortiz and friends, Patten said, and then Ortiz’s group started to walk away. But if the 1979 Dennis Quaid blockbuster “Breaking Away” has taught one anything about townie-student relations — and many say it has — confrontations like these rarely end with some harmless verbal jarring.
This one was no exception.
As Ortiz’s group was walking away, Kaplan said she heard Thorne shout obscenities at Ortiz. Ortiz came back, and the two traded punches, police said. When the dust cleared, both were arrested for breaching the peace.
Thorne declined to comment Wednesday evening on the incident.
There is no word on the possibility of a 14-round rematch at Caesar’s Palace.
Soccer? I hardly know her!
On April 8, Jack Lin ’02 was kicking around a soccer ball on Cross Campus at 10:30 p.m. when someone approached him and kicked his ball away, Patten said. Lin allegedly got angry and assaulted his would-be defender.
But that’s not the way Lin tells it.
He said that he was indeed playing soccer on Cross Campus that night, but that two female undergraduates cloaked in dark black robes — presumably for senior society Tap Night — “shoved him and assaulted him” before taking his ball and attempting to make off with it. Lin said he pulled their masks off and went after his ball.
“There was no assault,” Lin’s attorney, John Williams, said. “There was just a struggle for the ball.”
Lin is scheduled to appear in court next week to answer to charges of second-degree assault and breach of the peace.