Andrew Johnson Dreadlock Controversy At Buena High School Could’ve Been Framed Better Says Mike Frankel, The Reporter Who Covered It

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Last week, Andrew Johnson, a wrestler at Buena High School in sourthern New Jersey became a national story.

Referee, Alan Maloney forced Johnson to cut his dreadlocks minutes before ‬resuming his wrestling match on December 19.

Video of the whole ordeal was documented via a tweeted video that went viral courtesy of SNJ Today News’ sports director, Mike Frankel.

If you’re keeping score at home, Johnson, who is black, had a cover over his hair, but Maloney, who is white, said that wouldn’t do.

‪Civil rights activists, celebrities and tastemakers have voiced their displeasure via social media.

Frankel caught ire by some because of the wording of his tweet. The internet was not pleased.

Appearing on the Scoop B Radio Podcast, Frankel said if he had a chance to do it all over again, he would have phrased his tweet differently.

I think I would have just presented what happened,” Frankel told me.

“If you just remove the top part of my tweet and just basically present the facts or at least the facts the way I saw them, just present the video and give as much context, again, you’re dealing with Twitter so you can’t give a ton of context.”

Since last week’s incident, the Buena Regional school board held an emergency meeting last night and indicated that Buena High School’s wrestling team won’t compete in any events officiated by Maloney.

Frankel says he took a few days off from social media after the incident and reflected during the holiday weekend. “I should have followed up with more tweets,” he tells Scoop B Radio.

“But certainly once this thing started to go seriously viral, in my mind, I thought I was doing more harm than good in jumping back in and, you know, kind of wanted to give everybody their time to sound off. But yeah, to answer your question, I think just honestly the way I sort of quote unquote ‘framed it’ at the top was an issue and I get that now.”

Andrew Johnson’s attorney says that the Johnson family will not pursue legal action and the family is looking to move on.