By Joe Johnson
A University of Georgia football player was arrested Thursday night for reportedly shooting BBs at female students on the UGA campus.
According to UGASports, a source said that Bulldogs defensive lineman Warren Brinson shot at the women as part of the so-called Orbeez Challenge on TikTok, in which participants are encouraged to record themselves as they use a toy gun to randomly shoot people with water-gel beads.
UGPD Capt. Eric Dellinger said he could not confirm that the incident involved the Orbeez Challenge.
It could not immediately be learned if Brinson was represented by an attorney, and the football player’s phone number was redacted from a UGA police report.
UGASports reported that Brinson is a reserve defensive lineman who played in 12 games for Georgia last fall, finishing with nine stops, including one quarterback sack and eight pressures. He played in seven games as a true freshman and is expected to play a key role in the rotation for the Bulldogs this year.
According to a UGA police report, the incident for which Brinson was arrested occurred on Wednesday afternoon, when three 21-year-old students reported that someone in a vehicle shot at them with what they believed to be a BB gun as they walked on the sidewalk east of McWhorter Hall on River Road and across from the East Campus Village parking deck.
Two of the students had welts from being struck by projectiles, the police report indicated.
Officers used surveillance camera images to get a description of the vehicle, which was located two hours after the incident at an apartment complex, according to the report, where officers spoke with Brinson, the vehicle’s registered owner.
Brinson reportedly admitted to shooting a gel-pellet gun at the victims, whom he believed were acquaintances of his, according to the police report. The pellets “are the type that are intended to be soaked in water to make them swell in size and become soft prior to use were turned over to investigators by Brinson,” according to the report.
UGPD investigators subsequently obtained warrants charging Brinson with two misdemeanor counts of simple battery.
Brinson, 21, from Savannah turned himself in Thursday night at the county jail, and he was released early the next morning upon posting bonds totaling $3,000.