DeMarius Jackson was relaxed.

Wearing basketball shorts, a T-shirt and tennis shoes, he sat on a ledge next to the grill. As the designated cook, he was preparing hot dogs, hamburgers and chicken for friends at the summertime barbecue.

It was late June, and conversation was in full swing. Jackson, a third-year political science major from Albany, tended to food while having light conversation with a few friends.

Fifteen people came out for the intimate gathering around the pool at The Exchange apartment complex.

With the evening sky on the brink of sunset, the food was ready.

“Everyone was having a good time,” one partygoer said.

In a short time, that would all change. And all because of a rumor.

* * *

Michael Lemon was across the way playing a game of cards. Standing at 6-foot-4, 274 pounds, the sophomore defensive end on the Georgia football team was about to change the party’s mood.

Drinking liquor, according to police and published reports, Lemon suddenly rose from his seat and walked to the other side of the pool. He approached Jackson.

“He is considerably larger,” said Dyci Manns, Jackson’s girlfriend.

Jackson, who was chatting with friends, faced Lemon as he approached.

“I heard you been messing with my girl,” Lemon told him.

“I know her, but not like that,” Jackson said, turning, assuming Lemon was walking away.

Witnesses saw Lemon turn as if walking away, but he wasn’t.

From across the pool, witnesses heard what happened next.

“The echo was so loud,” one said.

The first two punches hit Jackson square in the face, doing damage to his left eye. Falling to the ground, he heard one of his best friends scream, but not much else.

“I only remember the first two punches, but I know that it was more than that because I blacked out,” he told The Red & Black.

Lemon “punched Mr. Jackson five times before someone pulled Mr. Lemon off. Several of the witnesses advised that several of Mr. Lemon’s friends ‘huddled’ around Mr. Lemon as he was punching Mr. Jackson,” the police report stated.

One witness agreed.

“He kept bashing him on the same side of his face over and over.”

Five punches later, Jackson’s eye was visibly damaged, and someone of equal size to Lemon stepped in and pulled him off.

Minutes later, Lemon and his friends were gone. Jackson remained on the ground.

Lemon’s “girl,” who was at the party, was visibly shaken up. Others began to cry.

A call was made to 911.

* * *

“The only thing I remember was walking toward the apartment,” Jackson said. “[My friends] said I was talking like I didn’t know where I was at first.”

Athens Clarke-County Police Officer Kyle Blagg arrived at the scene at 10:30 p.m. Talking to several witnesses, Blagg noted the damage done to Jackson’s face.

“Mr. Jackson’s left eye was noticeably swollen, and he also had a bump on his forehead from where Mr. Lemon hit him,” Blagg wrote. “Mr. Jackson advised that his vision was blurry in his left eye. It appeared as though Mr. Jackson also had a concussion from the altercation.”

Paramedics soon arrived. They took Jackson to St. Mary’s Hospital.

In Atlanta, Manns, a second-year telecommunications and Spanish double major, got a call.

Jackson’s friends told her he was on his way to the emergency room.

An hour later, she saw what had happened.

“When I first saw him I was disturbed,” Manns said. “He looked so bad, his face was like every color of the rainbow, it didn’t even look like him.”

Doctors told Jackson he suffered a blowout fracture to his left eye. A blowout fracture occurs when there is serious trauma to the eye. Manns left shortly after 3 a.m. to pick up medicine for Jackson, who was released almost eight hours after he arrived.

Jackson’s mother, Jacqueline, and her husband traveled from Albany on Sunday.

* * *

Monday morning rolled around, and the damage to Jackson’s eye was painfully present. That afternoon he went to visit the doctor again, and the news was not good. He was told his eye could take a full year to heal, and while there was progress, it was slow.

“I couldn’t open my left eye for about three days; it was swollen shut,” he said.

His face was numb. He was spitting up blood.

But there was also frustration.

Why was there no arrest? In an e-mail to The Red & Black, Manns asked a simple question: “Is anyone covering the recent battery of a student by a UGA football player that has conveniently gone unnoticed by the police department?”

“They think they can get away with stuff because they play football for the University of Georgia, they are regular people like everyone else,” Manns said.

On July 2, four days after the attack, Lemon was charged with felony aggravated battery and misdemeanor battery. The next day he was booked at the ACC jail, and hours later, suspended from the football team.

“I feel a whole lot better now,” Jacqueline Jackson told the AJC. “I felt they were really putting us off at first. I think me calling the D.A. and police finally paid off. It bothers me that it took this much.”

“It’s a step in the right direction toward justice being served,” DeMarius Jackson said. “I am a private person, and I don’t really like all the attention.”

What started as a gathering of friends ended tragically for many, and the repercussions will last for some time.

“It was like Othello,” said a witness who compared the scenario to Shakespeare’s tragedy. “[Lemon] kept hearing rumors. Being there at the cookout just elevated it. It was an awful situation, all over a rumor that was not even true.”

Note: Michael Lemon was unavailable to comment.