'Paranoid' Incognito committed
Gym member who called police ‘knew something was wrong.’
Mark O’Brien moved to Delray Beach in January, and since
then, he has taken to working out at Life Time Athletic fitness center in Boca Raton.
On Wednesday morning, he went to the gym to get in a quick run. Little did he know he would run into former Miami Dolphins offensive lineman Richie Incognito.
“I had the whole place to myself, which isn’t unusual because at that time of the day, (the gym) is not used as much,” O’Brien told
The Post on Thursday.
O’Brien, 54, said a man he didn’t know walked up, took off his shirt
and started bouncing around. “Immediately, I knew something was wrong or off,” O’Brien said.
The stranger at the gym was Incognito, who was involuntarily committed to a mental health facility after the events that trans
pired over the next few minutes. According to a report obtained from city police, Incogntio acted “altered and paranoid” at the time he was detained.
O’Brien said Incognito went over to a mannequin used for boxing practice, threw it down on the ground and put his knee into the mannequin’s face.
“I was like, ‘Man, that is strange behavior,’” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said Thursday that Incognito cut in front of him while
he tried to run on the track, and O’Brien later felt like someone was behind him. It was Incognito again, and the former Dolphin threw a tennis ball at him.
O’Brien angrily asked the 6-foot-4, 322-pound Incognito what he was doing, but eventually walked away and went over to a weight sled, loaded with 180 pounds of weight, that he planned to use to work out.
“He ran in front of me and grabbed the sled and basically tried to run me over with the sled,” O’Brien said.
O’Brien said Incognito yelled obscenities at him and called him names.
“When he almost ran me over with the sled, he said, ‘Get the [expletive] off my playground,’” O’Brien said.
O’Brien tried to brush aside the incident and go back to running, but he said Incognito picked up a 10- or 15-pound dumbbell and threw it at him, “grenade-style.”
That’s when O’Brien called the police. Incognito demanded to know who he was calling. “I was just like, ‘I’m not going to have some guy try to intimidate me or bully me,’” O’Brien said. “But when he … heaved the dumbbell, that’s when I realized that enough was enough. I’ve got to call police because I did feel threatened.”
O’Brien said he tried to leave the area while on the phone with 911, but Incognito followed him.
When police arrived, Incognito spoke and acted erratically, telling police that he was “running NSA class Level 3 documents through my phone. I can’t have anybody in Bluetooth capability of me or taking pictures of me,” according to a city police report.
One officer asked for more details on his phone and his involvement with the government, but Incognito reportedly told him he couldn’t talk about it because “he was under contract” and the officer “didn’t have a high enough clearance.”
The report says Incognito was suffering an “altered, paranoid state and believed ordinary citizens were government officials that were tracking him and recording him.” O’Brien said he was not surprised Incognito was detained under the Baker Act and that a trainer at the gym said Incognito had acted strangely.
“I just want to see him get help,” O’Brien said.
A member of the Dolphins from 2010-13, Incognito started 55 games at guard and was named to the Pro Bowl in 2012. He made national news for his part in a bullying scandal involving then-teammate Jonathan Martin in 2013. The Dolphins suspended him for “conduct detrimental to the team,” and he never played for Miami again.
Incognito signed with the Buffalo Bills, starting every game from 2015-17. The Bills placed the 34-year-old on the retired list on April 12 when he told the NFL Players Association in a tweet that he was “done” with his career.The Bills released him Monday so he could come out of retirement and potentially play again.