From CBS Sportsline:

AUSTIN—Chicago Bears running back Cedric Benson faces criminal charges of boating while intoxicated and resisting arrest.

Authorities say Benson was operating a 30-foot boat carrying about 15 passengers on Lake Travis on Saturday when he was stopped, then failed a field sobriety test. Officials say an officer had to use pepper spray to subdue Benson.

Travis County Sheriff’s Department spokesman Roger Wade says Benson was freed from jail on a $14,500 bond Sunday morning.

The 25-year-old Benson was the Bears’ first-round pick in 2005 after starring at the University of Texas.

Making us look good…

Bad for so many reasons..

1. The Bears just drafted a guy to push Ced and probably replace him.
2. No sports news right now (save the NBA playoffs), so this will be all over PTI and ESPN all week….

The Big Leads Take

Deadspin’s Take…

I’ve never owned a boat. What do you generally do for a boat party? Is there always a designated driver?

I am impressed his breaking and entering charge was plead down to misdemeanor trespassing; must have some good lawyers.

He is just making it easier for the Bears to cut his ass.

When I read this. You stay classy, Ced.

As you may know, I’m a big Benson fan despite the obvious NFL failures he’s had. I’m thinking Benson probably did do a little imbibing in his free time, but Austin police have also known to be notorious hardasses when it comes to the alcohols. Not that BWIs are anything to joke about. I’m guessing he’ll eventually plea out, and do quite a few hours of community service.

Anyways, Benson’s side:

“I was not intoxicated,” Benson told the Chicago Sun-Times. “There was alcohol on the boat and others were enjoying themselves, but I wasn’t drunk.”

“They gave me a field sobriety test, told me to say my ABCs and told me to count from 1 to 4 up and down,” Benson told the Chicago Tribune. “I’m thinking, I passed all the tests, did everything right. Then the officer told me we needed to go to land to take more tests. I politely asked him why we needed to go to land to take more tests when I took every test. Then he sprayed me with mace, on his boat.

“I’m not handcuffed. I’m not under arrest. I’m not threatening him. I’m not pushing him. I’m not touching him. And he sprays me right in my eye.”

[...]

“Nobody saw what he did to me,” Benson told the newspaper. “I started screaming for my mother to come. That’s when they put me under arrest. And the officer threw a life jacket over my head.

“Once we got to land, the Travis County police grabbed me and kicked my feet from under me. So I landed on my back while I was handcuffed. They held me down and held the water hose over my face. I couldn’t breathe, I’m choking, I’m begging the cops, ‘Please stop. Please stop.’ Then they picked me up and dragged me backward toward their car. And I’m still being polite, asking them, ‘Sir, could you please allow me to walk like a man to your cop car?’ They just kept dragging me on.”

I particularly like the part when he’s screaming for his mom. Because honestly, which one of us wouldn’t do the same in that situation?

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=3380764

Hopefully Jamaal will be a hit for the Chiefs and help clean up the tarnished reputation that have been following our RB’s from Texas.

Don’t fuck with the LCRA rangers, let that be a lesson to all you Devil’s Cove deviants.

Really though, if it was mostly his family on the boat he shouldn’t have been out of line. Not being able to say your ABCs means you’ve had more to drink than you should’ve.

First of all, the LCRA is a corporation and isn’t any form of government, I didn’t know that for the longest time, and it’s quite surprising.

Second, yeah a lot of us, particularly those who are the same age as Ced and were in the same year as him, knew he could be an asshole some if not a lot of the time.

Third, just think about this for a minute. He’s a in shape black man on a boat with other people who look like him, on Lake Travis.( Let’s also assume that the guys that took him in were white.) Sure he may have “12” people on the boat with him, and that could possibly warrant a “safety” inspection, but this all smells about as bad as the fish in Lake Travis. I could see him getting off with not too much trouble, then again, his previous run ins with the law might make it a bit more difficult.

Now, I’m not black, or white. I know that when I get pulled over by a cop/trooper/etc, or have to talk to one, it’s all yes and no sirs, because I feel that since I am hispanic, if I don’t pretend to give this guy all the respect in the world he thinks he deserves (and some do, don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying they don’t deserve some respect) that he’s going to rock my world, and not in the good way.

Now that more details are coming out, other than the initial blurb I saw on the ESPN newswire.

If this is a show of excessive force, I think the cops, or whoever it was, should be reprimanded severely. Is it just me, or do the police/enforcement officers in Austin tend to “overreact?”

even have a few people grabbing in their wallets for the race card, too.

Typical reaction when it is Benson.

A woman who was a passenger in Cedric Benson’s boat when he was pepper-sprayed and arrested Saturday night said the Chicago Bears running back did not seem intoxicated and did not resist arrest, according to the Chicago Tribune.

Elizabeth Cartwright, 22, a senior at the University of Texas and a friend of Benson, said she called her father and asked him to call police about the way Benson was treated by officers of the Lower Colorado River Authority, which patrols Lake Travis, a man-made lake northwest of Austin, Texas.

“I called my dad and told him, ‘Call 911, my black friend is getting beaten up by police on Lake Travis,’” Cartwright recalled, according to the Tribune. “It’s more what I heard than what I saw. I have never heard or seen Cedric that scared.”

More in the article.

For those wondering why Benson has no eyewitnesses, it was apparently because one of the officers took him to the LCRA boat to administer the tests; thus, no one on the boat could see what was going on.

Couple of interesting bullets from the story:

Cartwright said she is willing to present her account of events as evidence. She also said her fiance took photographs of the incident that help back up her claims.

Not sure how clear those pictures are, but it’s interesting that they exist.

According to the Tribune, Cartwright said she had had one drink and Benson had consumed two when the party of about 15 people decided to head back to shore at about 9:30 p.m. on Saturday to get dinner.

If Benson was steering the boat, consuming any alcohol is rather dangerous, so he’s definitely in the wrong there.

As has been discussed, it’s very likely the real story lies somewhere in between Benson’s account and the police’s.

http://www.statesman.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/austin/longhorns/entries/2008/05/08/who_else_was_on.html

It’s just like I thought, but couldn’t know until pictures came out, but it’s a boat with black men and a bunch of white women. Of course the cops were going to pull it over! I don’t want to keep coming back to this subject, but I just found the pic interesting.