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Refuse the Breathalizer
June
just wouldn't be June without a Sebastian Janikowski DUI
incident, and this year was no different. After his disastrous
foray into the world of GHB and unwilling dates, the Foul
Pole decided to go back to the bread and butter pleasures
of vodka mixed with German performance cars and immediately
hit paydirt. Janikowski was arraigned in Leon County Court
in Tallahassee, FL on June 10 after being pulled over on May
18 for driving "erratically" in his maroon Mercedes. Police
immediately issued a citation for the DUI, but declined to
prosecute Janikowski for buying a maroon car. Law enforcement
officials said records showed he had been cited for DUIs at
least seven other times, including three times in Tallahassee.
However, they made it clear that no favoritism was shown in
the decision to let him keep his license. "Not only NFL stars,
but ordinary people may drink and drive as much as they
like here in Tallahassee," one police spokesman said.
"We just pull you over if we run out of beer ourselves." Janikowski,
who was oncearrested for attempting to bribe a policeman,
reportedly had no liquor left in his vehicle at the time of
the citation.
One of the problems with professional sports is that there's
no way to completely isolate the athletes from the general
population. No doubt they're working on it: vast practice
facilities that come complete with whole artificial population
centers... Fully automated discos and bars manned by robots,
lots of papier mache parking meters and light poles to
safely drive into, and a never-ending supply of real high
school girls, red rubber balls strapped in their mouths,
imported through a special loading dock at the edge
of the territory. No other human interference would be necessary;
even the record producers who arrive to offer rap album deals
could be automated... That's the way it ought to be, but not
the way it is. In the real world, there's no way to remove
completely the extraneous human beings from the pro athlete's
existence. Case in point: the parking lot attendant.
Hardly a year goes by without a violent incident involving
a pro athlete, a $90,000 vehicle with a dent, and a parking
lot attendant who sooner or later surfaces on television
with a cheap lawyer and a neck brace. Mike Tyson used
to fill the yearly quota with admirable regularity, but this
year the job fell to Chicago Bears wide receiver David Terrell.
Terrell was arrested on June 13 on the classic sports charge
of simple misdemeanor battery after he and two other men had
a "disagreement" with a pair of Chicago parking lot attendants.
Punches were thrown, and one attendant was struck in the face,
although he stupidly declined even fictional medical treatment
after the fight ended. The ACLU has yet to protest the exorbitant
$100 bail set for Terrell after the incident.
Former boxing champion Pernell Whitaker earlier this
month had some advice for young people who are considering
experimentation with cocaine: don't hide it in your wallet.
The key with coke is to work up enough of a resistance that
you can swallow your whole load if you have to. When police
pull you over for driving into a light pole, toss the foil
packet into your mouth. Then try to keep as cool as possible
while they decide whether or not to make an arrest or issue
a ticket. That's the key moment right there, the difference
between be able to keep doing tons of coke indefinitely and
not being able to do any at all for at least the next 21 months.
Whitaker screwed it up back in March. He only had a few more
months to go before a previous cocaine charge would have been
dropped when he was pulled over for a moving violation in
Virginia Beach. While police were processing him for a four-day
jail term on the traffic arrest, they found a packet of cocaine
in his money roll. Now he's looking at ten years if convicted
for violating the terms of a previous drug sentence. "It has
not been a good day for me," Whitaker said after the hearing.
Finally, a story you've heard on the radio more often than
a two-for-Tuesday double-shot of Aerosmith: Dwight Gooden
arrested in Florida for driving with an open container of
alcohol. In an unusual twist, Gooden appeared to not actually
be drunk at the time of the arrest; police video showed him
passing the field test with flying colors. Gooden's attorney,
Joseph Ficarrotta, jumped all over the tape and get the charge
knocked down. "Law enforcement did the right thing and reduced
the charge to reckless driving," he said, stressing the words
right and thing. The Doc almost got off this
time, but the age-old unpaid previous unrelated traffic violation
did him in, and he was sentenced to 21 hours of community
autograph-signing. "I couldn't find a stamp," Doc explained.
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