Cedric Benson was arrested under the suspicion of boating while intoxicated. He’s claiming loudly in the media that he was beaten by the police.
Is this an attempt by him to gain sympathy in what would likely be a heavily black jury pool in the Chicago area? I have to think he’s already gone as far as the Bears are concerned. I can’t imagine any lawyer advising his client to mouth off to the media.
I think its he knows his job is on the line, and claiming innocence and racism and all that is his attempt to not get cut, as since he’s not that good anyway, his chances of being signed by someone else are slim. If he was coming off a 1500 yard season he probably wouldn’t have made any public statements. Its desperation on his part.
The race card accusation doesn’t apply if he’s telling the truth, so I’d like to know more about the situation before I can dismiss his comments that way.
What he fails to understand is if a cop gives you orders and you refuse, no matter how non violently or politely you refuse, they can use the allowable means to get you to comply, which I assume for someone that size may involve pepper spray. That’s why all of the others on the boat could think he did nothing wrong as he wasn’t attacking or threatening the cop, but not following orders when dealing with a police inquiry, whether you are 100% in the right or not, is stupid and illegal.
To which comments of mine (or Benson’s) are you referring here? At the moment we don’t know whether or not he refused to do anything.
If a cop orders me to blow him it’s illegal to not follow his orders?
I wrote that as an addendum to my post, not referring to yours.
I’m just reading between the lines after reading his comments. He’s basically saying he was doing everything the cop told him to do to the letter and the cop still sprayed him?
Snarky_Kong, it depends on the jurisdiction.
General Question: even for non-compliance, is pepper-spraying necessarily the next step in this scenario?
I can only go one what I’ve seen on reality shows like Cops and all, but I mean what alternative is there if you give a suspect in a crime an order and they don’t do it, hypothectically of course, and they are much larger than you? Is the cop supposed to not conduct his investigation whenver a perp doesn’t do as told? Fuck it, this guy isn’t in the mood, we’ll leave him alone?
Every episode of COPS I’ve seen when they pull someone over and tell them to get out of the car and sit down, the perp does it, or the cop “assists” them in doing so.
I saw some show of this type featuring people brought down to a city jail for trivial stuff, and there was one wanna be bad ass skinny guy who twisted his arm everytime the cop tried to put cuffs on him and they in turn damn near broke his arm to show him, yes, you will do what we say.
Now, you’re investigating a possible BWI, everyone is cooperating, there is no spray no rough stuff, and cuffs only when an arrest is deemed necessary, or if during the routine investigation the perp is combative or violent or non-complaint, the cop will put cuffs on for his own protection, and if you resist when doing so, spray is not out of the ordinary. Ive seen many times on COPS when the cop has a big guy he’s investigationg and not arresting and he puts cuffs on him just for his protection becasue he’s a big dude and doesn’t want to be in a jam should the perp go nuts. Cops get shot while pulling people over for rolling stops, and they can’t not protect themselves just because big bad ass football player isn’t in the mood to be questioned or detained.
The incident happened here in Austin, and if it goes to trial, I imagine he’d be tried here, right?
I’m inclined to think that CB was up to something. He had a string of “incidents” when he was in school here. He was never accused of anything - but one incident involved him kicking a door down looking for a TV in somebody’s apartment, I think another involved some weed that allegedly wasn’t his… the kind of things where I suspect that once he played the “do you know who I am” card the evidence “disappeared.”
You have to understand that Cedric came to UT with probably the biggest hype for any tailback in Texas history. He was on the cover of Texas Football - the first prep athlete to make the cover. Personally I think he was the beneficiary of a pretty amazing air attack and Vince Young. I’m not surprised that he hasn’t panned out to be all that in Chicago, because I think he’s a little overrated. I predict that Jamaal Charles will have a more successful and productive NFL career… now he came to UT without the hype that Benson had, but he’s the real deal.
Where did this come from?
Ya know, after I wrote that, and too late to edit, I re-read it and thought, crap, ‘that sounds obnoxious for no good reason, I hope **5-4-Fighting ** doesn’t take that as aimed it him’. I was kind of going for what a frustrated cop would say in a hypothtetical situation where he could not use force, or something. Plus, I use the f-word as often as I use the word “the”, and forget sometimes people who don’t love the word as I do take it as meaning offense, when I don’t. Regardless, it was in no way aimed at you and I apologize. 
I read that it’s a popular perception that the Police on that particular lake are overly aggressive and occasionally abusive to partiers. Having been to quite a few boat parties of that kind myself I don’t find that very surprising.
However, almost every boater in the area is drinking and probably considered drunk according to the letter of the law. That may or may not mean that a big guy like Benson was impaired, but I’m sure the cops knew that he could be busted.
What I imagine probably happened was that Benson and his group were partying and generally minding their own business. A proportion of them were probably very drunk and Benson was almost certainly drinking. The Cops decided to go and find themselves some trouble to stay occupied and since there’s some type of violation on every boat in a lake like that they knew they’d be able to. In deciding which boat to check out they probably targeted the biggest and wealthiest boat with the blackest and loudest crowd.
So, in that vein Benson was probably profiled and the Cops probably targeted him whether they knew who he was or not. He was either targeted for being wealthy and black or for being Cedric Benson. That said, he was probably over the legal limit just like every other boater out there, though chances are he was just tied up and anchored.
As to what happened after they boarded the boat is probably pretty simple to understand. The Cops were trying to find trouble and write some tickets. The people on the boat felt targeted and the Cop was probably being pushy and sanctimonious about it. Benson and some of his people probably mouthed off and said that they weren’t doing anything wrong. The Cop insisted on a sobriety test as punishment for being confrontational and Benson refused knowing that it was the legally prudent thing to do. At this point the cop felt “threatened” because he was on a boat with a dozen big black guys and decided to use mace. The proper thing to do would have been to call for back up and wait for him to comply, not to mace him. It’s not like Benson was an immediate danger to anyone on the water and he couldn’t flee. The cops would have been armed and safe to retreat to their own boat. Mace was completely unnecessary.
From a football standpoint, eat shit and die Benson.
I wasn’t taking any of it as aimed at me (here or in other places we’ve exchanged posts–thanks for the apology anyway). Curse words, in general, don’t bother me.
I just meant, how did we get from different scenarios where a cop might decide he should/should not use pepper spray to “I can’t raise this to a level where I can get control, so I’ll just let this guy go.”
I just wouldn’t think a cop would use pepper spray unless he felt threatened, or unless he was trying to subdue someone who was combative. I’ve seen them cuff someone not under arrest just for their protection, but not spray them just for their protection- I’m pretty sure that’s illegal. Sure there are rogue cops, but in front of dozens of people in the age of camera phones, the idea that a cop pepper sprayed him for no reason IMO is dubious. Benson specifically said he was not trying to attack the cop, but hell, if you’re maybe trying to put cuffs on someone, and they’re bigger, and try to prevent the cuffs from going on, I don’t know what other choice you have, even if you have ten cops there its still going to be a struggle, and an unncessary one that could cause injury without spray or a stun gun.
Men of size should know that cops are more wary of dealing with them in general and should be extra cautious to prevent what happened there.
That is, of course, bullshit.
You’ve lived a very sheltered life my friend.
Police are no more responsible or reasonable than the average person walking down the street. In some cases they might be less so simply because they tend to be somewhat blue-collar and have a guise of authority. More than a few bullies have ended up as cops just like more than a few bullies ended up as NFL players.
The police report says that Benson did not do anything aggressive. That’s the only acceptable reason for anyone to use pepper spray. The officers report says: “Benson [5-foot-11, 220 pounds] is a very muscular person and easily capable of overpowering me. As I had exhausted all attempts to gain control of Benson, and been met with resistance and what I perceived as a threat, I administered pepper spray into Benson’s face to gain control.” Nothing about him being aggressive. He perceived him as being a threat because he’s big and strong. Being afraid of what someone is capable of is not an acceptable reason to use pepper spray. Had Benson attempted to grab or manhandle him that’s different, being rude and refusing a sobriety test is not grounds for that type of force.
Also note that this is not a standard police force, it’s the Lower Colorado River Authority’s officers who might not be as rigorously trained and screened as a major cities forces.
I don’t know the specifics here, but as an example, if a cop is trying to put cuffs on you, you may be talking to him in the most polite of tones, not aggressive, not threatening in the least, but if you maneuver your hands purposely to keep him from putting the cuffs on, you are resisting arrest.
Yes there are rogue cops, yes there are asshole cops, racist cops, all that, but unless this particular cop turns out to have a history of complaints, I’m no cop lover but I’ll tend to be on the side of a cop than an athelete who failed a sobriety test (but claims he only had the cliched two drinks)with priors who has his career on the line.
It’s resisting arrest…but not a reason for the use of force and/or pepper spray. Huge difference.
He didn’t fail any test. He refused to take a test. Get your story straight before you go making blanket presumptions.
New witness has been interviewed by the Tribune. The story says:
So there’s one supposedly unbiased observer who seems to back up Benson’s side.