Police Responded to 1985 Bar Fight Involving Brett Kavanaugh and Former Blazer Chris Dudley, New York Times Reports

"There was blood, there was glass, there was beer and there was some shouting, and the police showed up.”

Oregon gubernatorial candidate and former Portland Trail Blazer Chris Dudley debates Allen Alley and John Lim at the 2010 Dorchester Conference in Seaside. (Chris Ryan)
By Nigel Jaquiss

The New York Times this afternoon reports that U.S. Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh and his close friend at Yale, the basketball player Chris Dudley, were involved in 1985 bar fight that resulted in police being called.

The Times story, based on a police report, says that Kavanaugh allegedly instigated the fight at a New Haven, Ct. bar.

The police report said the Yalies had attended a UB-40 concert earlier in the evening and a group of them gathered at a bar, where they thought one of their fellow drinkers might have been the band's lead singer. When the man told them to stop looking at him, according to Chad Luddington, who was part of the Yale group, Kavanaugh "threw his beer at the guy."

That's when the fight allegedly broke out.

"A witness to the fight said that Chris Dudley, a Yale basketball player who was friends with Mr. Kavanaugh, then hit the man in the ear with a glass," the Times story says.

Nobody was arrested and no charges were filed. The alleged victim declined to comment when the Times contacted him. Dudley and the White House did not respond to the Times' requests for comments.

Dudley played in the NBA for 16 years, including six years for the Portland Trail Blazers. He retired after the 2002-2003 season and in 2010, ran for an open governor's seat, narrowly losing to Democrat John Kitzhaber by just over 22,000 votes, or about 1.5 percentage points.

Last week, Dudley came to Kavanaugh's defense as President Donald Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court faced accusations of a drunken sexual assault while in high school. Other Yale classmates, including Chad Luddington, who first called attention to the bar fight, have characterized Kavanaugh as a heavy and sometimes belligerent drinker.

Related: Chris Dudley and Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh were drinking buddies in college.

The Senate Judiciary Committee last week approved Kavanaugh's nomination on a party-line 11-10 vote, but consideration by the full Senate has been delayed for an FBI review of accusations against the nominee.

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