Mayors Point Finger At One Another After Alleged Drunken Country Club Dust-Up With Claims One Was Body Slammed

Politics can be a nasty, nasty game. Sometimes this leads to a dust-up in the parking lot of a country club between two mayors who were once friends.

That's not a situation that anyone who gets into politics wants to find themselves in, but that's what has played out in the city of Rome, New York between the current and former mayors.

The former and current mayors of Rome, New York have wildly different versions of what happened in a country club parking lot earlier this week. (Image Credit: Getty)

The Oneida County Sheriff’s Office confirmed on Wednesday, according to the Daily Sentinel, that there is an investigation being conducted as to what happened on Tuesday night at the Teugega County Club between Mayor Jeffrey M. Lanigan and former Mayor James F. Brown.

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The two mayors have very different stories as to what played out during the reported confrontation. There are claims of intoxication and a body slam that allegedly took place.

Brown, the former mayor, said he was talking to someone in the parking lot when Lanigan, the current mayor, came up and body slammed him out of nowhere. He claims to have suffered a bloody injury to his arm that he had treated at a local hospital.

"He body-slammed me into the car. He caught me off guard. I didn’t see him coming," Brown told the Sentinel. Brown said he then got inside the vehicle and that Lanigan told him twice that, "We don’t want you here."

Brown had spent the day at the country club golfing prior to the alleged altercation and thinks politics played a part in what happened. He was critical of the current mayor during a radio interview on Monday.

There are claims of a body slam and intoxication being tossed back and forth between the two mayors

The current mayor's version of events is very different. There was no body slam, according to Lanigan. He says he approached Brown in the country club parking lot "in a respectful effort" to talk to him.

Well, that's reassuring, isn’t it? The mayor's not running around body slamming people into cars at the country club.

What really happened, Lanigan claims, is "in an attempt to get his attention, placed his hand on Mr. Brown’s shoulder. Mr. Brown responded by flailing his arms and he became verbally aggressive."

Lanigan, who acknowledged that politics can be ugly, said he recognized an "apparent level of intoxication" and escorted Brown to his designated driver's vehicle.

"While assisting Mr. Brown into the car, the verbal dispute continued. No physical assault occurred, and the situation ended shortly thereafter," the mayor's statement claimed.

"Mayor Lanigan wants the public to be assured that he never injured Mr. Brown and it is unclear how his alleged injury occurred."

Again, this mayor is not running around body slamming people, although I'm sure there would be some voters out there who wouldn’t mind if he was. Hand up, I'd have a hard time voting for another candidate.

The former mayor calls this squeaky-clean version of events "a total lie." And grab some popcorn because he believes there's video of the incident which will back him up.

He also said he's getting pressured to drop the whole thing, but those folks can kiss his ass because that's not happening. Now this is political theatre.