Tallahassee Police ticketed FSU player when he committed a felony
The Tallahassee Police Department only gave a ticket to a Florida State University football player who crashed his car into oncoming traffic and ran away from the scene of the accident, a felony.
The new report from The New York Times comes just months after a separate report by the Times seemed to show that the Tallahassee Police Department refused to properly investigate accusations of rape against FSU's quarterback, Jameis Winston.
The Times says the player driving the vehicle was starting cornerback P.J. Williams and that after the accident, Williams and the team's other starting cornerback, Ronald Darby, both fled from the scene of the accident. In addition to fleeing the scene of an accident, Williams was driving with a suspended license, according to the Times. The Times says that Williams eventually returned to the scene of the accident, but the police did not ask if he had been drinking, despite the fact the collision took place at 2:37 a.m. The police also downplayed the severity of the accident by omitting the fact that the airbags in the car Williams struck deployed, and that both cars were totaled. The Times says that the treatment Williams received differed sharply from a similar accident in the same area. In a collision where the driver left, but also eventually returned to the scene, and also caused much less damage and occurred at lower speeds, the driver was charged with the felony of hit and run. As more police arrived at the scene of Williams accident, including high ranking officers of Florida State's own police force, the initial report that called for charges of hit and run and holding Williams' vehicle as evidence were changed, according to the Times. The Times says that when asked about the lack of charges, the Tallahassee Police provided incident reports of hit and runs that also did not result in charges. The Times says that four of the cases caused no damage and took place in parking lots, while the other three came no where near the severity of the crash in which Williams was involved
