On this past July 7th, Minnesota Vikings running back Adrian Peterson was arrested on what seemed to be ridiculous charges. He was enjoying an evening with family and friends at a nightclub in Houston. That was shattered when he was hauled away for resisting arrest. The puzzling thing from the start was that it was never clear what he was being arrested for when he allegedly resisted the arrest. Even beyond that mystery, no one in the nightclub saw Peterson do anything requiring an arrest. Let alone resist it. The nightclub hired off duty police officers as security and two of them really wanted to see Peterson arrested.
So, here we are. Peterson's lawyer, Rusty Hardin, came up with a solution to get the charges dropped. He decided to have a grand jury decide whether the case against his client should go forward. He was willing to let Peterson testify without a lawyer present with 12 citizens and a prosecutor because both knew that Peterson had done nothing wrong. The prosecutor agreed to the approach and Peterson flew to Houston on Monday night. On Tuesday morning, the two police officers, an employee of the club, and Peterson testified separately. Peterson met with the grand jury for about 25 minutes. Approximately five minutes after he left the room the grand jury decided that the case should be dropped.
Hardin pointed out that three "red flags" made him confident that Peterson would be exonerated. First, several employees of the club insisted that Peterson had done nothing wrong. Second, four of the six police officers who were on the scene said that they didn't see anything. Third, none of the patrons who were present in the club at the time of the incident were quoted as corroborating the arresting officer in the police report.
Officially, the charges will be dismissed today.
I don't get how two idiots, in the name of the law, can just up and arrest a person just because they want to.
No comments:
Post a Comment