Forgive Beckham and drop the charges

Forgive+Beckham+and+drop+the+charges

Shortly after Louisiana State University won their fourth national championship, a video of alumnus Odell Beckham Jr. slapping a New Orleans Police Officer on the butt surfaced on the news.

Three days after the video flooded  social media, the New Orleans Police Department put out an arrest warrant for Beckham.

As of Jan. 20, the NOPD has rescinded the warrant with NOPD spokesman Gary Scheets saying “judge for yourself” on the conflict.

I believe that the NOPD overreacted, as the security guard who was assaulted never planned to press charges. Now, I am not defending Beckham’s actions as  his actions were not appropriate regardless of the circumstances, but I feel the warrant was overboard.

This inappropriate action was clearly not thought out by Beckham. Beckham was in the heat of the moment and made a stupid decision. Should it have been done? Of course not, but there were also rules being broken by the whole team with the Tigers smoking inside the Superdome. To me, if you are going to take action against one person then you should take action against everyone who broke the rules.

The other problem I had about the arrest warrant was how late it came out. It felt like the NOPD waited for the public’s reaction to file an arrest warrant. If the NOPD’s true reason for obtaining a warrant was to arrest Beckham, then they would have done it earlier, not four days after the championship.

Yes, technically Beckham did something unethical, but it was a light tap and no one was injured. I can almost guarantee you that more illegal things were happening in New Orleans that night. If the NOPD was to file arrest warrants every time someone was touched without consent, then Mardi Gras would have to be shut down completely.

I feel that the NOPD filed the arrest warrant simply because of Beckham’s social status, or maybe it was a way to obtain money from Beckham. We will never know, but the warrant never really made sense and was only active for a couple of days. If the warrant was serious, I feel like the NOPD would have done a better job actually trying to arrest Beckham.

Many people of the media claimed that this was Beckham’s way to blow off some steam from his disappointing season. I felt that this was Beckham being proud of his alma mater and trying to have a fun time with the team. I don’t agree with Beckham’s actions but everyone has their own way of having a good time and maybe Beckham’s is just in a different way.

In all honesty, the whole situation was blown out of proportion, Beckham should have never done what he did, and the NOPD should have never filed for an arrest warrant. I feel like the whole situation would have been better if Beckham came forward and apologized to the officer as well, but hindsight is always 20/20.