A newly released body camera video shows the moment Team USA soccer star Alex Morgan was ejected by police from Walt Disney World, along with two MLS players and another friend, after getting into an argument at a bar.
In the recording made by an Orange County Sheriff’s deputy, the soccer players try to convince officials that they were not drunk and did not use foul language, and at one point, one of the women in the group expresses relief that she is white, not black.
Morgan, an Orlando Pride forward, was at the amusement park on October 1 with Orlando City players Giles Barnes and Donny Toia and the latter’s wife, Courtney Toia, when, according to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office, the foursome got into an altercation with another patron at Epcot Center’s UK pub.
In the hot seats: This screenshot from a newly released body camera video shows (L to right) Team USA soccer star Alex Morgan, her friend Courtney Toia and the latter’s husband, MLS player Donny Toia, being interviewed by police at Walt Disney World on October 1
During the contentious interview, Morgan (left), who is white, told a deputy she cannot image ‘what black people go through’
The 28-year-old Orlando Pride forward insisted that she was not ‘mouthy’ and did not use foul language or destroy any property during an altercation at a bar
During the clash, one of the soccer stars reportedly cut in front of the patron and was heard spouting expletives – an allegation all four later denied to police.
The body camera video made public on Tuesday shows Morgan, Barnes and the Toias speaking to police officers in a conference room at Disney World.
Courtney Toia insists that she is sober and witnessed the interaction at the pub, and she does not believe her husband, Donny, had started the argument,
‘I’m telling you, you were not there and I was there and I’m sober and I was w watching this event unfold and it is ridiculous that he [Donny] is the one sitting here and not the guy that was causing all of this,’ Mrs Toia tells the deputies.
When the group of friends are asked to hand over their identification cards so that paperwork could be filled out banning them from Walt Disney World, Donny Toia snaps at the officer, telling him: ‘Can I get it out? You don’t have to ask me five f***ing times. Damn, Dude.’
Morgan is seen in the video talking on the phone with someone through most of the interview.
Donny Toia called the officers ‘cowboys’ before being kicked out of the resort. On the right, Morgan is seen leaving the conference room after signing papers barring her from Disney properties
The friends were ushered into the parking lot to wait for an Uber to pick them up
She later professes her innocence, insisting to the officers: ‘first of all, we did not curse, we didn’t get drunk, we didn’t destruct any property.’
When a deputy suggests that Morgan and her companions were ‘pretty mouthy,’ the 28-year-old star athlete loudly expresses her indignation.
‘Mouthy? I didn’t say anything cursing. I didn’t say anything. Dude, you guys are lying right now. I can’t imagine what black people go through,’ Morgan, who is white, says.
The interview with the officers concludes with the four friends signing paperwork banning them from all Disney properties, but a defiant Morgan reassures her friends that the sanction against them will prove short-lived.
‘That’s fine. It’ll be rescinded tomorrow,’ she says with confidence.
As the four unwelcome guests are ushered out of the conference room to wait for an Uber to pick them up, one of the two women says off-camera: ‘I’m so glad I’m white. Can you imagine if we weren’t?’
‘No, I can’t imagine,’ the other woman in the group replies.
After the bodycam footage was made public on Tuesday, Morgan released a statement to Orlando Sentinel saying, in part: ‘the video released today shows that while we were all caught up in the tension of the moment, I was not out of control or highly impaired. I used bad judgment and I was simply trying to support my friends.’
Last week, Morgan expressed remorse for her conduct at Disney World in a tweet that read: ‘I want to apologize for my actions that occurred over the weekend. I will learn from this make sure it does not happen again. #liveandlearn.’
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the 28-year-old forward for Orlando Pride – along with Giles Barnes and Donny Toia and Toia’s wife – was asked to leave the theme park.
Morgan and the players had allegedly engaged in ‘an eight-hour drinking binge’, reported Page Six.
The group had become ‘rowdy’ when Barnes reportedly cut in front of someone in the United Kingdom Pavilion area in the Epcot Center around 8.20pm on October 1.
Team USA soccer star Alex Morgan (pictured, November 2016) apologized on Wednesday after being kicked out of Orlando’s Disney World and escorted away by police following an altercation at a bar on Sunday
Morgan, a forward for Orlando Pride, was at Epcot Center with friends (circled in red), when she became ‘rowdy’ after an alleged ‘eight hour drinking binge’
‘I want to apologize for my actions that occurred over the weekend. I will learn from this make sure it does not happen again. #liveandlearn,’ she wrote on Wednesday on Twitter
Morgan was escorted out while ‘yelling, screaming…she appeared to be highly impaired [she made] a loud verbal statement that she knows the Orlando SWAT team,’ deputies said.
Toia was also ‘verbally aggressive’ to officers and pub workers, according to an incident report release on Tuesday
‘To prevent this incident from possibly turning physical I grabbed his left arm…spun him around so he was facing away from me…and told him to keep walking towards the front of the park,’ Officer Armando Harwood wrote in the report.
The incident report described difficulty escorting Morgan, Toia and Toia’s wife to a conference room and recalled them ‘being belligerent, with screaming and yelling’ once inside the room.
Barnes also was given a trespass warning, according to the report.
The incident occurred in the United Kingdom Pavilion area in Epcot Center at Disney World when soccer player Giles Barnes reportedly cut in front of someone around 8.20pm
Witnesses told TMZ that Morgan – who has been married to soccer player Servando Carrasco since 2014 – Toia and Barnes began quarreling with an other group of people after this incident.
Eventually, the altercation ended with an Orange County Sheriff’s Department official intervening asking everyone to leave.
‘These are the individuals that were trespassed from Disney on October 1,’ the Orange County Sheriff’s Office told TMZ Sports.
Morgan (pictured, July 2015) was escorted out while ‘yelling, screaming…she appeared to be highly impaired [she made] a loud verbal statement that she knows the Orlando SWAT team,’ deputies said
According to an incident report, Giles Barnes (left) was given a trespass warning, according to the report and Donny Toia (right) was ‘verbally aggressive’ to officers and pub workers
Morgan, Barnes, Toia, and Toia’s wife Courtney (pictured, with Toia) were all kicked out of the park. The incident report described the Toias and Morgan as ‘belligerent”
Morgan, Toia and his wife, Courtney, were accused of trespass and subsequently escorted out by deputies.
No charges were filed in relation to the incident once the players left the premise.
Hours before the alteration Morgan posted a photo on Instagram of her with a big group of people outside the Epcot Center – the incident having occurred in the United Kingdom section of Epcot Center at Disney World.
‘Annual around the world in 8 hours. No big,’ read the caption as the group posed outside of Mitsukoshi Restaurants.
Morgan was spending the day with her friends at Disney World in Orlando (pictured, Magic Kingdom at Disney World)
The Orlando City Soccer Club released a statement via the Orlando Sentinel that read:
‘The Orlando City SC organization is aware of a situation that occurred at Walt Disney World’s Epcot theme park earlier this week and is awaiting official communication from Disney or the Orange County Police Department.
‘The club will address the matter internally when there is a full understanding of what occurred.’
Morgan and Carrasco pictured at their wedding at Rancho Dos Pueblos on December 31, 2014