Early in May cops in Louisiana arrested two football players for the University of Alabama on drugs and weapons charges. Now, just over a moth later, the local district attorney says he dropped the charges partly because the pair play football.
This week Ouachita Parish D.A. Jerry Jones confirmed that he dropped the charges against University of Alabama players Cam Robinson and Laurence “Hootie” Jones.
Robinson, the team’s star left tackle and last year’s All-SEC first-team player, faced two misdemeanor charges for possession of pot and illegally carrying a firearm along with a felony charge of possession of a stolen firearm. Jones, a reserve defensive back who has been on the team for two seasons, faced two misdemeanor charges. All charges were dropped.
Ostensibly Jones insisted there was insufficient evidence to prove who was in possession of the gun and the drugs. However, he also made other statements that reveal a separate motive for dropping the charges.
“I want to emphasize,” Jones said in a public statement, “once again that the main reason I’m doing this is that I refuse to ruin the lives of two young men who have spent their adolescence and their teenage years, working and sweating, while we were all at home in the air conditioning.”
This admission won’t go very far to assure citizens that football players are held to the same legal standards as everyone else. And while Jones serves his fifth term as the local D.A., his decision likely irks voters who root for LSU.
Crimson Tide head coach Nick Saban had said he would wait on the legal process before making any decisions on what sort of punishment he’d mete out to the players. But with this precipitous dropping of the charges, it isn’t likely the school will move to punish the players.
Follow Warner Todd Huston on Twitter @warnerthuston or email the author at igcolonel@hotmail.com