2006 Photo
During tailgating festivities on SMU Boulevard, the SMU police are usually occupied with checking the ID’s of drinking students and removing those who may have had too much. On the Boulevard before the Texas Tech football game, SMU police officers were busy arresting an offender they were very familiar with. However, this arrest had nothing to do with alcohol.
On Monday, Sept. 3, SMU police arrested alumnus David T. Ball on Bishop Blvd. during the first tailgate event of the year for violating a criminal trespass warning. Ball had been issued the warning two years earlier after students reported that Ball had been involved in lewd activities at a fraternity party.
According to records from the National Student Clearinghouse, SMU’s authorized agent for providing degree and enrollment verifications, David T. Ball attended SMU from August 1989 to May 1993. Ball graduated in 1993 with a degree in marketing and organizational behavior and business policy.
On Oct. 29, 2005, a house officer from an IFC fraternity called the SMU police department to ask Ball to leave a party that was being held at the house. According to SMU Police Chief Richard Shafer, Ball, 36, was representing himself as someone younger than he actually was. Shafer says Ball was telling others that he was around 24 to 26 years old.
Shafer says that Ball was issued a criminal trespass warning for being involved a “strange,” “unusual,” “lewd” act. He would not comment further on exactly what Ball was involved in, but insists that it does not classify as sexual assault.
A source, who wishes to remain anonymous, says that at the Oct. 25 party, Ball approached him and informed him of a non-fraternity affiliated, male, first-year student who had gotten sick, and was throwing up in a bathroom. The source said that Ball offered to take the individual to his home, where he would take care of him and make sure he was okay.
“The hairs stood up on the back of my neck,” said the source, a senior business major.
The source denied Ball’s offer, and instead let the student sleep off his sickness on a futon in the common room of his room in the fraternity house.
The source said that he left the student sleeping on the futon, with the lights on and the common room doors unlocked. He returned one to two hours later, and found the doors locked and the lights turned off, with male underwear and clothing on the floor. He turned the lights on to the accompanying bedroom, and found Ball standing over the first year student, who was now in the source’s roommate’s bed, still asleep.
The source said he asked others to make sure Ball did not leave the room while he went to go call police. He quickly returned and found Ball gone. He approached the student, who was still lying in bed, and wearing the source’s clothing. He asked the student if he was all right and if he remembered putting on the source’s clothes. He said the student seemed disoriented, but that he did not remember putting on someone else’s clothes, or how he got into the bed.
The source wrote a witness statement for police, but the student did not press any charges, said SMU Police.
The source was originally going to identify himself in this article. After discussing the issue with fraternity members, he decided to keep his identity anonymous, as not to have the fraternity become the focus of the story.
A little less than a year later, on Sept. 23, 2006, Ball, who is commonly known as “T-Ball” to SMU students and police officers, was seen on Bishop Blvd. prior to a football game. Shafer said that Ball made himself aware to officer J.D. Norris, who immediately recognized him.
On both of Ball’s arrests, police say that he denied knowing about having a trespass warning against him.
“He knew he wasn’t supposed to be out here,” said Shafer. If convicted by a Dallas district attorney, Ball could face six months in jail, and a $2,000 fine for each offense.
In an e-mail, Ball said that he was told verbally in November 2006 by SMU Police that former Chief Mike Snellgrove had removed an “an erroneous trespassing warning for the SMU campus” and that he was welcome to visit the campus at any time. Ball said he took full advantage of the warning being lifted, and attended Homecoming and other sporting events.
Ball said he was therefore “surprised” when SMU police arrested him on the Boulevard before the football game against Texas Tech on Sept. 3.
Ball’s name and photograph have appeared in the Rotunda yearbook in 2005 and 2006. In both yearbooks, Ball is listed as a sophomore student.
Ball reported through an e-mail that he was on campus in 2004 when photographers from Thornton Studios were taking student photos in the Hughes-Trigg student center. Ball said he needed some headshots taken for resumes that he was sending out. He said he asked the photographers if non-students could have their picture taken, and have the proofs mailed directly to them. Ball said this worked out, and that there must have a mix up between his pictures and the ones that were sent to the yearbook.
Ball did not say whether or not this was the case for both years in which he appeared in the yearbook.
According to members from Student Media Company, which produces SMU’s yearbooks, a person must present their student ID when sitting for a yearbook photographer. They must also tell the photographers what year they are in school.
2005 Photo
David T. Ball is pictured in a composite from the Sigma Phi Epsilon house. Ball was a student from 1989-1993 at SMU. (John Schreiber)
