http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...ball-fans.html

'Stop using your wheelchair as a crutch': Marine who lost legs in Afghanistan forced out of restaurant with his family after cruel taunts from rival football fans

By Daily Mail Reporter

PUBLISHED: 09:57 EST, 25 October 2012 | UPDATED: 12:21 EST, 25 October 2012



A U.S. Marine who lost both his legs in Afghanistan was forced to leave a Charlotte restaurant with his family after local football fans hurled vile abuse at them for wearing Dallas Cowboys jerseys.

Marine Garrett Carnes, of Mooresville, North Carolina attended Sunday’s Carolina Panthers’ game against the Cowboys with his wife Courtney, their parents, and friends Brett and Nicole Coburn.

After the game, which the Cowboys won 19-14, the group stopped at the Moosehead Grill for dinner. Several members of the party, including Garrett Carnes, were proudly wearing their Dallas Cowboys jerseys.



A group of disgruntled Panthers fans spotted their jerseys and started to taunt Carnes and his group even before they entered the restaurant.

'Courtney was the first one out of the vehicle, and while she was getting Garrett’s wheelchair, one guy immediately started yelling at her,' Brett Coburn told The Charlotte Observer.

Once in the restaurant, the Panthers fans continued to mock Carnes and his group. One person told Garrett Carnes: 'Don’t use your wheelchair as a crutch.'



Carnes, who is still undergoing treatment for his wounds at a Washington-area hospital, told them he was a veteran who had lost his legs in Afghanistan.

The situation quickly deteriorated and according to witnesses the two parties almost came to blows after one of the Panthers fans approached Carnes in a threatening manner.

Other patrons stepped in to defuse the situation, but staff asked Garrett Carnes and his party to leave. The police were called by Courtney Carnes, although no charges were filed.

Carnes’ mother, Rhonda, has since addressed a note to restaurant patrons on Facebook. She wrote: 'Why didn’t any of you stand up for my son and daughter? And to think my son almost died for every single person in that bar, by defending all your freedom.'

I do wonder if our poor Marines and service men and woman are still getting the same crappy treatment like those from the Vietnam. I hope they weren't mis treated after the Gulf War though.

Disgusting. Those ungrateful pigs put a damned sporting event higher on their priority list than honoring a man who fought for their lives, and almost sacrificed his own.

Stories like this make me ashamed to be of the same species as those slopebrows. So I better look up a positive one to balance this out!

Sickening...and heartless. :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad: :mad:

I wonder how the situation would've been if Dallas had lost the game. Also, I thought the troublemakers were the ones that were usually asked to leave. :confused:

^Exactly. Why didn't they ask the people causing the trouble to leave, not the innocent victim...

The Moosehead Grill is getting so much bad press, I read that it has shut down it's facebook page and people, especially veteran's, are going to review sites and slamming the grill. The guy doing the bullying is called Tank.

I'm a quiet gal, but if something like this happened in front of me, I would have to do something. This just burns me up.

If some Clevelander saw a War Veteran who has no legs wearing a Steelers Shirt...we would just give him the pass since the Browns makes anyone frown.

But those people taunting the veteran shouldn't be disrespected...he fought for freedom!

That's terrible. They should be ashamed of themselves for taunting a wounded veteran. People should be able to wear shirts with sports teams without being ridiculed. The fact that they claimed he was using his wheelchair as a crutch is sickening. He lost his legs in war. He's recovering, what do they expect him to do?

:( What a sad, and frustrating, story. People make me sick.

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2012/10/25/3620757/marine-amputee-charlotte-restaurant.html

Marine amputee is taunted at south Charlotte grill
Owner ‘heartbroken’ by actions of patrons, wants to ‘make it right’

By Steve Lyttle

Posted: Thursday, Oct. 25, 2012



The owner of a south Charlotte restaurant says he is “heartbroken” over an incident Sunday in which bantering between football fans got out of control, resulting in a U.S. Marine who lost both legs in Afghanistan being forced to leave the eatery with his wife, parents and friends.

Chris Neilsen, owner of the Moosehead Grill on Montford Drive, has been in contact with family members of Marine Garrett Carnes, of Mooresville, following the incident that Neilsen says “was awful.”

“I want to somehow make it right by them,” Neilsen says.

During a verbal altercation that some witnesses said almost came to blows, one patron allegedly told Carnes he was using his wheelchair “as an excuse.”

In an interview with The Observer, however, the fan said Carnes and members of his party were equally abusive. And he denied making a remark about the Marine’s wheelchair.

The incident happened after Carnes, his wife Courtney, their parents, and friends Brett and Nicole Coburn stopped at the restaurant for dinner after attending the Carolina Panthers’ game against Dallas. Several members of the party, including Garrett Carnes, were wearing Dallas Cowboys jerseys.

“Courtney was the first one out of the vehicle, and while she was getting Garrett’s wheelchair, one guy immediately started yelling at her,” said Brett Coburn, who described the man’s comments as “taunts.”

Coburn said that when the group reached the front door, the fan was waiting for them.

“He was standing at the door, and he started harassing us because of the Cowboys jerseys,” Coburn said.

He said the fan told Garrett Carnes, “Don’t use your wheelchair as a crutch.”

The fan, who did not want to give his name, gave a different account.

“Moosehead is a Panthers’ bar,” he said. “When they came, wearing the Cowboys’ jerseys, I started up on them. I asked them if they were Cowboys fans who lived in North Carolina.”

“I’m not going to fight someone in a wheelchair,” the fan said.

“I’m sorry it happened,” the fan said Thursday. “It just got out of control. I wish I could talk to him (Garrett).”

According to multiple accounts of the incident, Carnes told the patron – and others who were ridiculing the group for being Cowboys’ fans – that he was a veteran and had lost his legs in Afghanistan.

Members of the Carnes-Coburn party tried to “defend ourselves verbally,” Brett Coburn said.

“We were going back and forth,” the fan said. “Yes, it got out of control.”

The fan said one woman in the Carnes-Coburn party swore at him.

He said the fan walked toward Carnes in a threatening way, and some other patrons stepped in to break it up. The fan said he walked away and did not confront the group.

Neilsen said his employees are trained to separate possible combatants, in an effort to defuse such situations. On Sunday, staff members asked Garrett Carnes and his party to leave, while they took the fan to another area of the restaurant.

“It spiraled out of control,” Coburn says.

Courtney Carnes called police, but no charges were filed.

Neilsen said he arrived at the restaurant after the group had left and was in the parking lot, talking to police.

“I didn’t want them to leave,” he said of the Carnes-Coburn party, “but I understand why they left. I’m miserable. My heart hurts for them.”

He said the trouble was caused by people who “are not regulars” at the restaurant and added that the fan was not welcome to return.

Carnes, who is still undergoing treatment for his wounds at a Washington-area hospital, is trying to stay out of the dispute, Coburn said. Carnes’ mother, Rhonda, addressed a note to restaurant patrons on Facebook, saying, “Why didn’t any of you stand up for my son and daughter? And to think my son almost died for every single person in that bar, by defending all your freedom.”

The fan told the Observer, “He (Carnes) is a veteran, and I appreciate what he did for this country. But I don’t appreciate how abusive they were.”

That's a shame! A person who fights for our country should be treated with much more respect.

This sort of **** makes me sooooooo mad.:mad:

^Exactly. Why didn't they ask the people causing the trouble to leave, not the innocent victim...

Because that would actually make sense!!!

Also, I thought the troublemakers were the ones that were usually asked to leave. :confused:

I thought so too...

I thought so too...
Not when you are a fan of a visiting team in a restaurant in a sports town it seems. :ohno:

Not when you are a fan of a visiting team in a restaurant in a sports town it seems. :ohno:

:rolleyes: Yep, some people need to lighten up once in a while.

These idiots take the term "sports fanatic" to a whole new level. :rolleyes:

I'd say that "fan" is full of sh*t plain and simple and just trying to save face.

Why did the owner not do anything about the staff members
who forced the Carnes family to leave? Offering an apology to
the family is a good start, but those staff members should be
disciplined(if not fired) for what they put the Carnes family through.

Disgusting, that poor man. I sometimes think that sports can be as divisive as politics.

Disgusting, that poor man. I sometimes think that sports can be as divisive as politics.

Or Religion

Or Religion
True, but we all know that. Don't talk about religion or politics in mixed company. I'm tossing in sports. Some people go bonkers over it.