A Twitter account attributed to Rashan Michel, the ex-NBA referee who was arrested after a fight with Dominique Wilkins, is getting a lot of press this week. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution has cited it as being Michel's account, which may have led others like Bleacher Report to trust its validity. But I'm pretty sure this thing is totally fake, as has been alleged by many others.
(Video and details of the Wilkins-Michel bout, if that's what you're looking for.)
Here's why, if we must, besides the obvious fact that the thing was started up about three hours after Michel was arrested, which means we're expecting Atlanta PD to really churn through the booking of a guy who just punched the city's most beloved basketball player:
First, there's this tweet. @RashanMichel tweets "its easy" in response to the question "how can u attack the #humanhighlightfilm Dominique Wilkins?" Since Michel has publicly claimed Wilkins opened fire first, wouldn't he refer to his actions as defensive rather than offensive?
There's also the matter of the only two accounts the subject follows: the NBA and Tim Donaghy. If you were setting up a fake profile for a NBA referee, would you have it follow a NBA referee? Maybe the only NBA referee you'd ever heard of? That'd be a great idea. Judging by Michel's Myspace and Facebook he's a pretty popular guy. Why doesn't he follow any of his friends on Twitter?
The account claims to have been arraigned -- if you've seen a movie with a court scene, arraignment is the part where the defendant pleads guilty or not guilty before a judge. Which Atlanta judge rolled out of bed at midnight in order to have Michel back home and on Twitter by 3 a.m.?
Besides the fact that there's a tweet in bad Atlantan, there's also a tweet in good Dutch. Dutch? I could go on. Every tweet is suspect.
I'm all for fake Twitter accounts when they're funny, and this one has certainly amused many people. This is funny, period. But if this thing is real, I'll try and start a public fight with a treasured local athlete in his home arena.