UConn students arrested for racist comments were playing ‘penis game,’ ‘N-word game’

The two University of Connecticut students arrested for making racist comments were playing the “penis game,” which then transformed into the “N-word game,” according to the UConn Police Department’s arrest warrant affidavits.

Students Jarred Karal, 21 and Ryan Mucaj, 21, were walking back to their apartment in Charter Oak Apartments’ Thompson Hall from a night at Huskies Tavern, Huskies Bar and Sgt. Pepperoni’s Pizza when they started playing the “penis game,” which involves shouting the word “penis” as loud as one can, Karal said in his affidavit. The first person who doesn’t want to shout it or says it softly loses the game.

As Mucaj and Karal made their way past the bus stops to the entrance of Charter Oak Apartments, they switched from yelling “penis” to yelling the N-word, Karal’s affidavit said.

“We played this game for about two minutes as we continued our walk back to Thompson Hall,” Karal said in the affidavit. “On our walk back as we had been playing the penis game saying the N-word, we did not see anyone around or see anyone looking at us from the apartment buildings.”

Karal said he thought he and Mucaj had been speaking in a tone slightly louder than conversational level.

“I sincerely apologize if we had offended anyone. This was not our intentions at all,” Karal said. “We were acting dumb, idiotic and childish. We should have never used that type of language at all. It was not our intent to broadcast what was said to any one person, we were just being immature. I sincerely apologize again for our actions.”

In Mucaj’s affidavit, he said he didn’t remember what he was saying as he walked through the parking lot because he was drunk. When asked by UCPD Officer Dean Vertefeuille if he was playing a game where he was saying “penis,” Mucaj responded that he didn’t know, but that he doesn’t remember saying the N-word at all.

Mucaj told Officer Vertefeuille that targeting someone by saying the N-word would be the last thing they would do.

A third student, whose name is redacted in the affidavit, was walking with Karal and Mucaj but told the officer he did not take part in the penis game and did not use the N-word.

The student stated that he told Mucaj and Karal to stop multiple times and told them they were being idiots, he said in the affidavit.

“It was not directed at anybody it was just them being extremely stupid and disrespectful,” the student said in the affidavit.

The student who took the video, whose name is also redacted in the affidavit, said he was playing video games in his apartment at around midnight the morning of Oct. 11 with his apartment window open when he heard Karal and Mucaj talking outside.

“I could hear them screaming the word penis while joking around as if they were playing some sort of game,” the student said in his affidavit. “I then took out my cell phone thinking that I would get a funny video of the group of males as they walked past my apartment building.”

The student said the men stopped yelling when he started video taping, but that they then began saying the N-word.

“As the group transitioned to saying (the N-word) they began to speak in a much softer tone and were not screaming nearly as loud as they had been previously,” the student said.

The student said he was unable to hear what Karal and Mucaj were saying when he first videotaped, but that after re-watching the video and turning up his volume he realized they were saying the N-word.

“As I had been filming the video, I also was unable to determine if the group of males had looked directly up towards me as they walked by; however, watching the video I saw that the group of males may have looked up towards my window and am unsure if the group had been specifically directing the racial slur towards me.”

Karal and Mucaj were arrested Monday night under Connecticut General Statute 53-37, which is ridicule on account of creed, religion, color, denomination, nationality or race, UConn spokesperson Stephanie Reitz said.

Gabriella DeBenedictis is the news editor for The Daily Campus. She can be reached via email at gabriella.debenedictis@uconn.edu.