Kirk Barton, a former Ohio State football standout and owner of the Ohio State football website, Buckeye Scoop, was involved in a fatal drunk driving crash early Saturday in Dublin. He struck a parked car, killing the driver inside, according to police reports.
Barton, 40, was behind the wheel of a Ford F150 Raptor around 3 a.m. on West Bridge Street near the trendy Dublin Bridge Park area when the crash happened. The victim, 24-year-old Ethan Perry, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Barton was reportedly charged with aggravated vehicular manslaughter. He suffered non-life-threatening injuries and was treated at Riverside Methodist Hospital before being taken into police custody.
The investigation is ongoing, with impairment believed to be a factor. An Instagram post from the Buckeye Scoop account indicated that Barton was out earlier in the hours before the reported crash.
Reached by Awful Announcing for comment, a representative for Buckeye Scoop said, “We are praying for the kid’s family and all involved.”
Since retiring from football, the former Ohio State All-American has found himself regularly in the news for various controversies.
In 2022, he was banned from Ohio State and had media credentials revoked after using “improper and unauthorized access to Ohio State’s internal football video system” to “[expose] team formations, schemes and personnel changes” on the Buckeye Scoop message board and website.
Predating the credentials issue, Barton was embroiled in a legal battle over the ownership of Buckeye Scoop, in which other site owners fired and sued Barton and another owner, Ken Stickney, who goes by the posting name NevadaBuck, over various ethical concerns regarding the site’s finances.
Barton also made headlines in 2018 when he was charged with assaulting a deputy. Bodycam footage showing him being tasered while intoxicated at the Memorial Golf Tournament quickly went viral on social media.
As authorities continue their investigation, more details are expected to emerge. We’ll keep following this developing story.
About Sam Neumann
Since the beginning of 2023, Sam has been a staff writer for Awful Announcing and The Comeback. A 2021 graduate of Temple University, Sam is a Charlotte native, who currently calls Greenville, South Carolina his home. He also has a love/hate relationship with the New York Mets and Jets.