Source: Ezra Shaw / Getty
The details surrounding NFL star Richard Sherman‘s arrest early Wednesday morning near Seattle are indeed disturbing, but not as disturbing as they could be since he is alive to tell about it.
The full picture hasn’t been painted yet of what exactly happened when the free-agent cornerback was taken into custody by officers with the Redmond Police Department, but what has been reported so far suggests he may have been suffering from a mental health crisis or depression.
Sherman was allegedly trying to break into the home of his wife’s parents following a reported single-vehicle accident in which he was involved that may have been caused because he was drunk. But been before that, according to a 911 call from his wife, Sherman was acting suicidal and threatening to harm himself verbally as well as in text messages to friends. Police have said Sherman resisted arrest when they arrived at his in-laws’ home, prompting them to sic a police dog on him.
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The bottom line is that Richard Sherman is lucky the police didn’t kill him.
As we’ve seen too many times now, even the most innocent of police encounters can turn deadly in a split second. The chances of that happening increase exponentially when the suspect is Black.
The 911 call from Sherman’s wife was released Wednesday afternoon and suggests the NFL star was going through a personal crisis. Ignoring for a moment how rude the 911 dispatcher was to Sherman’s wife, who was pleading for help despite being repeatedly interrupted during a frantic moment, the contents of the call are disturbing.
Ashley Moss told the 911 dispatcher that her husband was “drunk and belligerent” and that he was fighting her uncle. At one point she said Sherman was threatening to kill himself.
“He has sent text messages to people saying he’s going to hang himself, and he’s saying that if the police show up that he’ll try to fight them,” Moss told the dispatcher, who seemed to be confrontational with the caller.
“This is Richard Sherman,” Moss implores the dispatcher. “This is a fucking emergency!”
