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Jaguars cornerback Brian Williams was found not guilty of drunk driving today after standing trial this week in Jacksonville.
Williams was arrested in September of 2006 after a police officer said he swerved in front of a patrol car, had watery and bloodshot eyes and smelled of alcohol. The arresting officer also said Williams was verbally abusive.
But Williams said it was the officer who mistreated him, and the passenger in Williams’ car testified that the officer was “egging him on” and “trying to provoke Brian.”
Williams testified he had one drink and was not intoxicated, but that he lied to an officer who asked him if he had had anything to drink. Williams initially pleaded no contest but later dropped his plea. Had he been convicted, he faced up to a year in jail.
July 10th, 2008 at 7:53 pm
That’s our justice system for you, if a guilty person can pay enough to extend his trial for longer than a year, he’s acquitted. Sometimes I feel sick about the direction our country is headed in.
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Rating: 2.15 / 5 with 7 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 8:27 pm
It’s not to difficult to believe that he was targeted. There are some people in Jax that have not caught up to the 21st century yet.
http://www.firstcoastnews.com/news/mostpopular/news-article.aspx?storyid=109330&provider=top
You don’t see many Bentley’s rolling down Bay street. He wanted to be noticed and he was. The real crime here was his decision to go to Club Paris (which lasted about half a second - like everything else in her vacant life) in the . For that he got off way too lightly.
Another cop is on record that he saw the incident in a somewhat contradictory manner. This issue is dead.
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 8:39 pm
Maybe Khalif Barnes is right.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 9:01 pm
Lock his as# up for 1 yr, if this would have been another person w/ no money, his as# would had been in the big house.
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Rating: 2.6 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 9:25 pm
The Jaguars have just been hogging the news cycle.
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Rating: 3.5 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 10:12 pm
Unreal. Nearly hit a police car, fail a sobriety test, cuss out the officer and then offer your date for sex to get out of being arrested. There was more.
Hire an expensive lawyer and you can get out of it. Sounds like politicians.
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Rating: 2.8 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 10:22 pm
Well I for one am glad that there are people other then the above posters and countless cop butt kissers that can get on a jury and not take a cops word as gospel just because the guy is a cop. As someone who knows about 10 Cincy cops personally, I sure am glad they are my friends, because if they weren’t they’d mistreat my a$$ in a New York Minute on the street.
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Rating: 3.4 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 10:27 pm
Wrong girthyone.
3 other officers refuted the arresting officer’s lies.
I set in on much of the trial, and the cop was simply exposed and taken apart for being corrupt and a liar.
He was innocent, and and nearly all the evidence pointed to his innocence.
They had nothing on him, at the end of the day, other than One cop’s lies.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 5 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 10:39 pm
20 years ago if a cop pulled over a player(nhl,nba,nfl,mlb)who had drinks in his system they would send him on his way or give him a ride home.now adays they take them 2 da clink. florio, u call them turds.if thats the case then all the old time players should all have dui’s
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 11:09 pm
yeah lets lock him up for a DUI and waste 20,000 dollars of tax payers money to have him sit on his ass, good idea.
united states has the worlds largest prison population…the WORLD and we make up about 4% of the worlds population. there are more people locked up in marylands jail as of 2003 than all of canadas jails combined
facts from : http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0601-01.htm
edukate yoselfs
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Rating: 3 / 5 with 2 rating(s)
July 10th, 2008 at 11:38 pm
I wish people would understand that cops are human too. They make mistakes, and some do lie. You have good and bad cops, just like you have good and bad people. Also don’t believe that all rich people can hire a lawyer and get off. There are plenty of cases of rich people going to jail and there are plenty of poor people who got off on a charge.
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Rating: 3.65 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
July 11th, 2008 at 7:33 am
Sad, Williams is guilty only of the offense, driving while black.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 3 rating(s)
July 11th, 2008 at 7:39 am
Look on the bright side everybody…Obama has changes ‘a comin’…Gene Upshaw may just end up being VP and then the NFL will really get funky…
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 11th, 2008 at 8:08 am
Interesting tidbit: The expensive lawyer referenced above was none other than the son of former Jaguars, and current Giants head coach, Tom Coughlin.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 11th, 2008 at 8:41 am
hey spanky,when your plan comes to pass,we will
officially be the head of the third world.
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Rating: Not yet rated
July 11th, 2008 at 9:42 am
For those of you who assume he bought his way out of a guilty charge, did you miss the part about THREE other cops contradicting the arresting officer? That just does not happen if the guy is guilty. I’m more than willing to believe Williams is completely innocent - he’s just lucky that there were others there willing to testify to the facts.
While there are actual drunk drivers out on the streets that pose a real danger, many other people who had a drink or two and are completely safe are locked up based on one cop’s report that often includes the standard boilerplate report:
- Swerved
- Glassy eyes
- Odor of alcohol (even though alcohol is odorless)
- Slurred speech
- Failed sobriety test (most people wil “fail” this when stone cold sober)
Hate drunk drivers, but hate when people are falsely accused. When it’s your word against a cop with no other witnesses… good luck… Good cops deserve a lot of credit and respect, it’s a tough, often thankless job. But when the bad ones are discovered, they should be put under the jail.
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Rating: 1 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 11th, 2008 at 10:42 am
matt jones was arrested on cocaine charges yesterday, how come florio isnt hyping it up, and calling him a turd and reset the turd punch clock. I smell a big pile of racism and it aint funny, if matt jones was black espn, and major outlets would be hyping it up. Step your game up.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)
July 11th, 2008 at 10:51 pm
Atlasshruggs, how is that part of his defense was that nobody else saw the incident, but it was refuted by 3 other cops. Very interesting.
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Rating: 5 / 5 with 1 rating(s)