A former football player with the University of California at Berkeley was arrested over the weekend on suspicion of attempted assault on a police officer.
According to Berkeleyside.com, police said the assailant—identified as 19-year-old Joseph Adeyem Wisdom Ogunbanjo—flagged down the officer while walking in the center median of a divided road.
Police said the officer—whose name has not been released—stopped his patrol vehicle and told Ogunbanjo to sit on the ground. Ogunbanjo reportedly initially complied, but then proceeded to launch an attack on the officer during which he attempted to disarm him.
At one point, the man elbowed the officer in the head and got into the driver’s seat of the patrol vehicle, according to police. The officer ultimately used his baton to get the man out of the vehicle, said Berkeley (CA) Police Department spokesman Officer Byron White.
Other officers arrived and Ogunbanjo was taken into custody. He faces charges of attempted carjacking, threatening violence on a police officer, attempting to remove an officer’s weapon, and battery on a police officer.
UC Berkeley confirmed that Ogunbanjo was suspended from the Cal football team during the fall season and is no longer on the team. The reason was not disclosed.
