Houston Police may have Racially Profiled Adrian Peterson - Video of Incident to be Released
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From [HERE] One arrest that took many sports fans by surprise was that of Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson, who was arrested on Saturday morning on a Houston nightclub for resisting arrest. He was released on $1,000 bond a few hours later. Aside from a few traffic stops in his career (including one for failing to wear his seat belt!), Peterson is about as squeaky-clean as any high-profile athlete can be. He is universally acknowledged as a team leader, and many players cite his impressive recovery from injuries to be an inspiration.
Some are speculating that Houston Police Officers profiled him. Attorney Stephanie Stradley said, "anytime there's a resisting arrest situation and no other charges, and there's a large, black athlete involved, it's one of those situations where it raises eyebrows," Stradley said. "Because there have been some very high-profile situations in the Houston area where African-Americans have been targeted by HPD wrongfully."
NBC Sports said [HERE] that the incident culminating in Peterson’s arrest was captured by one or more surveillance cameras. Multiple persons also witnessed the event. Peterson, his girlfriend, and some family members were at a nightclub in Houston. At closing time, a group of police officers entered the club, and they began instructing the remaining patrons to leave. Peterson wanted to get some water before he left, but an officer told Peterson that he needed to leave. Some words apparently were exchanged, but Peterson eventually walked to the exit with one of the club’s bouncers.
It’s believed that one of the officers then jumped on Peterson’s back from behind and tried to take him down. Other officers then joined the fray and completed the arrest. Peterson was charged with resisting arrest, which implies he was being arrested for something else. He is charged for now with no other crime.
Multiple witnesses recorded portions of the incident with their phones, but it’s currently believed that the best view of the interaction between Peterson and the police will come from the surveillance camera(s) at the club.
Stradley brought up the case of Texans guard Fred Weary, who experienced a similar situation in November of 2006.
"Basically, he was followed in his car for 4-6 miles, and the reason they followed him all the way from Reliant Stadium was that he was 'looking suspicious in a high-crime area.' He's driving his Impala near his place of business, and they followed him all the way around the 610 loop to find a reason to pull him over. He didn't know why he was being pulled over, and one thing led to another, and they tasered him and arrested him for resisting arrest."
The charges were dropped due to insufficient evidence. One year later, Weary sued the city of Houston and the two police officers involved in the stop. Joseph Walker, Weary's attorney, said that the officers "clearly used race as a factor for reasonable suspicion and making a traffic stop."
"He never got his letter of apology or a concrete review of tasering," Walker said at the time. "He asked for a copy of [taser] policies and they sent him a policy that was completely blacked out, censored."
