The Cedric Benson Case: Not So Cut, Not So Dried
May 8, 2008
So, what exactly is Cedric Benson guilty of? Being intoxicated on a boat on Lake Travis in Austin, Texas? Let’s see, there were, from the photo accompanying this article there were at least six young black men and six young white women, plus Jackie Benson, Cedric’s mother. Now, if Cedric was intoxicated on this boat ion this perilous lake where there have been 22 fatalities in the last three years (called a “spate” of deaths by Howard Witt of the Chicago Tribune) Yet there are no statistics for fatalities in the three years period before this; or five year period, or 10. I’m sorry but if we have no comparative fatality statistics for Lake Travis, no matter how hard we try, we have no “spate.”
But I digress. If Cedric Benson was intoxicated and the Lower Colorado River Authority was looking out for boater’s safety - performing “random safety inspections,” it stands to follow that the officer at the scene, Sgt. Leonard Snyder, would call for more patrol people and give field sobriety tests to everyone on the boat, including Jackie Benson. That, apparently, is too logical a chain of events for the patrolman in the Benson case to follow - or for Witt or any other reporter either in Austin or Chicago to ask.
Why is this important? Benson was pulled from the boat, dragged through the water to the shore - or not, depending on whom you believe, and taken to a nearby marina where he was charged with resisting arrest and boating while intoxicated.
Someone had to drive the boat to a safe space, yes? And with at least 11 other passengers if Benson was intoxicated it sure would have been a crime - pun intended - for another intoxicated party in Benson’s boat to drive the craft —— anywhere.
So, with absolutely no proof of any other party on Benson’s boat being intoxicated, we are to believe that one Cedric Benson formerly of the University of Texas and the third-leading rusher in Longhorns history and presently of the Chicago Bears was the only person drinking or over the legal limit on the boat.
Again, this stretches credulity. I mean, talk about flipping the script on having a designated driver, huh?
Then there is the question of the legality of “random safety inspections.” In 1990 the Supreme Court ruled that properly conducted checkpoints are constitutionally legal (though they directly violate the 4th Amendment). However, one of the primary general guidelines for checkpoints is that they cannot be random, they must be performed through a neutral formula, that is, every other vehicle, or every vehicle, or every fifth vehicle. That these checkpoints are called “random safety inspections” points towards their illegality:
…they deny police abused Benson or that he was singled out for special scrutiny.
“It’s routine to stop people on the water for safety checks,” said Krista Umscheid, an LCRA spokeswoman. “It’s not based on anything in particular that people are doing. The officers are not required to have probable cause to do an inspection.”
But the overreaching problem here is that Texas is not a state authorized to conduct sobriety checkpoints. The states that have passed a law allowing them are:
Alaska, Alabama, Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, Missouri, Mississippi, Montana, North Carolina, North Dakota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia
Moreover, it opens the way for profiling of any sort.
And with the boat owned by Cedric Benson we’re talking about racial profiling. We’re talking about at least six young black men and six young white women in a new 31.5 foot motorboat worth $147,000 at 9:30 p.m. on Saturday night:
Sgt. Leonard Snyder, who pepper-sprayed and arrested Benson on Lake Travis near Austin, Texas, said he surmised Benson was intoxicated because he was “combative,” “cocky,” “insulting,” and used “profanity.” At times, he was “crying” and “cooperative,” Snyder wrote.
Historically, “cocky” and “insulting” in police reports dealing with black men are much more often than not code words for “uppity black man.” Snyder further described the confrontation with Benson:
After failing sobriety tests administered by Snyder, an officer with the Lower Colorado River Authority, Benson refused to come ashore for more tests and “stood up from the position where I had him seated and suggested I could not tell him what to do,” the report said.
After informing him he was under arrest and about to be handcuffed, “I touched his body in an attempt to direct him and he presented himself in a very hostile way,” Snyder wrote.”Benson is a very muscular person and easily capable of overpowering me. As I had exhausted all attempts to gain control of Benson, and been met with resistance and what I perceived as a threat, I administered pepper spray into Benson’s face to gain control.”
How could Snyder’s version diverge so drastically with every other version? Perhaps because, as Witt reports in his article the Benson incident is an abnormality:
Several boaters randomly interviewed Tuesday evening on Lake Travis said the LCRA officers generally are respected as responsible law enforcement officers who prefer to issue warnings rather than citations when they see violations to avoid spoiling recreational experiences for people.
Yet Wilt, after this insight, falls back into seeking information to corroborate the LCRA’s side of the story. It is as if Wilt himself is afraid of reprisal from the Austin water police:
Although the City of Austin Police Department has been the subject of scrutiny over racial-profiling complaints in recent years, no such complaints have been made about the LCRA police, according to the Texas ACLU and other civil rights watchdog groups.
With a 94% white arrest rate (2.2% blacks, 2% Asian, and the remainder unclassified) it is easy to surmise that the preponderance of boaters on Lake Travis, particularly since a 31.5 foot, $147,000 boat is an average Lake Travis party boat, are white, racial profiling complaints would be kept at a minimum.
But we are still left with not only Benson’s account of the story…
“There was no resistance on my part,” Benson told the Tribune on Sunday night. “Was I drunk? No.”
“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 said of Saturday’s incident. “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 said. “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.”
…we have a divergent story from another person on the boat:
A woman who was a passenger in Cedric Benson’s boat when he was pepper-sprayed and arrested Saturday night said the Chicago Bear’s 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.”…
Cartwright said she is willing to present her account of events as evidence. She also said her fiancé took photographs of the incident that help back up her claims.
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. About that time, a patrol boat approached to conduct a random check, she said.
According to Cartwright, it was the sixth time that a patrol had stopped Benson’s boat on Lake Travis in as many outings this year.
Cartwright said after the boat passed the safety checkup, Benson was asked to board the LCRA craft for a sobriety test. As an officer led Benson to the LCRA boat for the test, the second officer left behind on Benson’s boat assured his mother, Jackie Benson, that her son would be fine, Cartwright said, according to the report.
“I know Cedric and I don’t think he was drunk,” Cartwright said, according to the Tribune.
A few minutes later, Cartwright said she heard Benson begin to scream after the officer pepper-sprayed him, according to the report. By the time Benson was in handcuffs, he was screaming, “Please stop, Mom, make them please stop,” she said.
According to the report, Cartwright’s father, Jeff, called 911 at his daughter’s insistence. Unaware she was calling about Benson, he told the dispatcher that police “were beating up a black kid on Lake Travis.”
”In the weakest voice, Cedric said to me and my fiance, `Help me get out of here,’ ” Cartwright said. “He was so scared.”
Even if the “random stop” was somehow legal, it cannot be extrapolated to mean that a beat down for someone perceived as combative, cocky, and insulting is also legal. However, it is par behavior for the course with white police interacting with young black men, especially those they feel by their build are a physical threat.
But stopping Benson’s boat was not at all legal. Under the circumstances as described by Benson and Cartwright, pepper spraying the running back, dragging him ashore, and obviously from his mug shot, beating him, was not at all illegal, either.
Yet this is 2008 treatment of black men - and women, and in some instances, children. It is 2008 treatment just like it was 1998 treatment. Just like every decade previous to that so far into the past that no one wants to remember.
For Howard Witt and Maureen O’Donnell, though, the tilting of the facts of what happened on Lake Travis against Benson are just another day at the office, attempting to crush the spirit of a running back who has been branded as weird and aloof, who had very minor run-ins with the law - he was sentenced to eight days in jail in 2003 (at UT) for a misdemeanor trespassing charge after forcing his way into an apartment to look for a television stolen from him; in 2002, misdemeanor drug and alcohol charges against him were dropped - who for three years has run behind offensive linemen who blocked like they despised him, who was never Ricky Williams, the Longhorns running back before him.
Benson was and remains quiet, thoughtful, and aloof - and a bit of a mama’s boy. He is slower than Williams but as powerful. His first half carries will not excite you but if you believe in him, or at least understand what he is as a runner, you will be rewarded in the 4th quarter when tacklers shy from hitting his huge frame and the three-yard carry of the first three quarters is the eight-yarder in the fourth, at the time eight yards is needed most. Just check his stats at Texas.
What needs to be remembered as this case moves forward (Benson is set to appear in court for a hearing on May 19) is that there are more than distinct sides to this story as it stands: one from the LCRA and one from Benson and Cartwright. But there is also the side of wanting Cedric Benson run from Chicago and the Chicago Bears and one that wants to see him in an offense that features him, like the offense he was in at Texas.
Finally, there are the two sides of race. To many, many white people this incident is perceived simply as Cedric Benson receiving his just desserts for threatening the authorities.
To many, many black people this incident is a case of racial profiling. And to the people taking in the evidence so far, the bootprints of yet another incident that is a microcosm of a history of racist oppression in America are everywhere.
Just remember that all these sides exist.
But remember the minority viewpoint is as valid as the other. And because black people are the recipients of systemic oppression and institutional racism there is a highly-attuned radar for events like this that is inherent in the black collective unconscious.
Just as there is a radar that tells too many white people to view this event and attack Cedric Benson - or turn in a contrived self-righteous disgust and walk away.
Comments
27 Responses to “The Cedric Benson Case: Not So Cut, Not So Dried”
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This story bothers me more and more. When you first wrote about this story, D-Wil, I thought what you said mad sense. Still, I wouldn’t have been that shocked then to hear that Cedric had been drunk and unruly. But the more I hear, the uglier this story is getting. Just goes to show there’s a lot of evil in the world…sheesh, this is frustrating. I had an encounter with authority when I was younger that helped me realize just how helpless you are when you are in the hands of the police. Poor Cedric!
I’m really curious as to how MSM will continue to portray Benson….
When Benson spoke up in response to what happened, I thought the initial story stunk. When I read about Cartwright’s corroboration earlier today, it really started to reek. Plus, the incident as it stands now can’t be separated from the impulse of a segment of Bears fans who want Benson cut loose.
Hopefully he keeps fighting this. This is way too insane, and thanks for listing in which states have checkpoint laws. I hope Benson’s lawyer happens to have that same information on hand.
– great piece dwil, if MSM are smart they will use this piece as the blueprint… but they won’t
– Benson is one of only two people to be arrested this year for Boating While Intoxicated at Lake Travis, and three were arrested last year. I would be curious if any of the other four were black. I’d also be interested on what % of black boaters even exist…
– my gut tells me that the entire story is rooted in that photo with the white women
– dwil, it’s investigative pieces like this why I’m a proud member of this site
Once again Dwil, stellar post.
When will these uppity negroes learn that they have no business driving anything nicer than a Minivan, being out past 10:30, owning a boat, and >gasp< cavorting with virginal white women. In Texas no doubt.
You can expect another scathing expose on how “Hip-hop/Prison/Black KKK culture is responsible for…” from uncle Ruckus any day now.
The idea that Benson was the only person on that boat that was intoxicated is laughable. And the river authority allowed someone else to drive the boat after Benson’s arrest is criminal on the part of law enforcement.
What should’ve happened is that the entire group of boaters should’ve been brought in. Yes, including the cute little white girls in bikinis. But manhandle one of THOSE girls the wrong way, and you’ll have a bit of a harder time putting their bludgeoned faces on the news and getting sympathy from the right-wingers who would have you believe that Barack Obama is a daishke wearing radical AND an arugula salad eating liberal.
Dwil:
When I heard this story break on KNBR, I thought to myself “uh-oh” (having not much use for Travis County Texas law enforcement stemming back to 1969). Having read your pieces, my concerns were confirmed.
This thing stinks. Badly.
Dwil,
Great piece as usual.
However, Howard Witt is the one who brought both the Cotton and Jena 6 stories to the national media. So I’m less inclined to beleive he’d intentionally slant this against Benson.
[…] here’s the follow-up to the Benson story with the latest info as of its […]
Your compilings, while somewhat unedited and painfully biased, are thorough to say the least. What ruined everything for me, however, were your trite taglines of “systemic oppression” and “institutional racism” at the end. I suggest that you continue to let the facts present themselves, and then make a judgment on whether Benson was in the wrong, or the arresting officer was. Frankly, if I was a cop on a boat of 16, I’d do whatever I felt necessary — following guidelines, of course — to cover the bases of safety for myself and all involved, regardless of skin color. He may have followed routine procedure. He may be a racist pig. Whichever it is, to lump every crime against every minority into such woeful categories is, in my estimation, a shame.
bankmeister-
The facts are presenting themselves and so far we have two people with vastly different accounts from the officer. One of these people is willing to show video and photographic evidence to back her statements. She was also so afraid for her friend that she called her father to have him call the police on the river policeman. She also intimated that this is the sixth time she has been in this boat with Benson and has been “pulled over” by the LCRA.
Yes, yes, those too are facts. What is shameful, though, is that you dismissed them.
Bankmeister… please read what the author said more carefully:
“But remember the minority viewpoint is as valid as the other. And because black people are the recipients of systemic oppression and institutional racism there is a highly-attuned radar for events like this that is inherent in the black collective unconscious. Just as there is a radar that tells too many white people to view this event and attack Cedric Benson - or turn in a contrived self-righteous disgust and walk away.”
Mentioning “systemic oppression and institutional racism” is not trite, but “truth”. In the context of this story, it lends itself to “driving while black”, not some imagined systemic form of racism, but something very well-documented with many studies. To expect such a phenomena to exist with cars, but not boats is absurd. And this is to say nothing about what happens after the pull-over.
Frankly, the author was quite charitable in his response in that DWB is more than a perception, but a quantifiable reality. But that kindness/charity was lost on you. And to let the final outcome of this case have any bearing on acknowledging a previously-existing systemic reality, in my estimation, a shame.
dwil, I started my last post before seeing your statement… wasn’t speaking for you but myself…
Sweet J-
I know Witt’s work and I feel he slanted his work because he’s a Bears person - and I hope that was clear in the article.
“Finally, there are the two sides of race.”
Uh … not to nitpick, but there’s more to race than white and black. I’m sure you’re well aware of that, but such statements suggest that you view race as close-minded as those you denounce.
Otherwise, I enjoyed your article. Well-written.
dwil — i’m not dismissing or disputing any facts. simply pointing out the quick-trigger reaction to apply forced-and-tired labels upon something that’s being represented — in two perspectives, as you reminded — from two people who are both friends with one another, and complete strangers to the rest of us. if either of us were either in benson’s spot, or the girls, of course we’re going to have stories that are similar to one another, yet different from what the other party reports. again, not dismissing facts. rather cautioning the fuel-on-the-fire editorializing with aforementioned taglines.
modi — i read everything carefully. twice. i’m neither attacking benson, or walking away in disgust. my point was to acknowledge that racial profiling, or DWB as you cleverly call it of course is truth; there is documented evidence to support such a claim. it is, however, trite, and quite frankly impossible, to blanket this incident with such quantifiers of systemic oppression and institutional racism. i say this, because i think that such labels demand that you ask, and successfully answer, who’s system is oppressing, and who’s institution is imposing racism. in my opinion you can’t answer either question with “the white man” or “the law enforcement agencies” because that would be an unfair and inaccurate representation of both parties.
bankmeister-
It would be really, really stupid to tell reporters that you have photographic and video evidence of this event if you don’t. Should Cartwright provide a statement to a lawyer, which she probably already has and it is found to be false, she’s in mooe trouble than she ever wants.
————————-
Attack what you wish but systemic oppression and institutional racism are constants - part and parcel of the fabric of Western society and thie manifestations exist and occur millions of times on a daily basis. That you call them trite is a wonderful and desired defense mechanism of those two realities.
And two more things —- These labels do not “demand” anything except in the head of the beholder. If they demand ask, and successfully answer, who’s system is oppressing, and who’s institution is imposing racism that’s on you. Do not think that anyone else will or is must subscribe to a perspective that only allows for a constricted perspective of the reality of oppression and its cousin, racism.
Finally, I have never, ever answered any question of these sorts with something so hackneyed and frankly stupid and ill-informed as “the white man” or “the law enforcement agencies.”
I suggest you take the time to read my writings as they exist here as I have provided my perspectives on enough occasions on these issues that I have a track record for you to search out and explore intelligently before you attempt to label me or my thinking.
JDM-
Thank you (almost totally)…
When you show me another people(s) brought here, chained and prone in the hulls of ships to work as substitutes as farm animals, who were actively stripped of their culture, and taught to hate themselves, I’ll stretch this conversation beyond black and white.
Until that time I’ll continue to discuss racism in the manner I presently choose.
Bankmeister, I know that you read it twice, but I have also read it at least twice and the statement seems quite basic and not the least bit controversial to me. I’ll post it a 3rd time.
“And because black people are the recipients of systemic oppression and institutional racism there is a highly-attuned radar for events like this that is inherent in the black collective unconscious.”
What are you contesting? Do you believe black people AREN’T the recipients of systemic racism? And that this doesn’t inform collective consciousness?
If even in this limited context of DWB (although the author’s context was broader), you agree that studies show that blacks and whites, on the whole, receive disparate treatment from police, then there is nothing to discuss really. That means you already agree with the first half of the sentence. The second half of the sentence simply states that this reality informs a more “highly-tuned radar” that influences consciousness. Is this part in dispute? I would even argue the latter influences consciousness a bit closer to reality than those racial groups who are spared the same treatment.
Aboriginal people were massacred in droves, removed from their land and forced to live in squalor, actively stripped of their culture, and taught to hate themselves. Chinese people are still brought to North America to work as slaves as payment for their smuggling.
Care to include these people in your discourse?
Your points are understood, gentlemen. The reason I commented in the first place was to subtly suggest how quickly the possibility of “person” in the wrong, allegedly intoxicated and posing a threat/resisting arrest is dismissed. Instead of waiting to see if this person was in fact in the wrong, the fire is fueled by the labels — call them what you will, that is what they are. To further your postulations by suggesting that the acts and elements of these so-called constants are represented in manifestations that “occur millions of times on a daily basis” only certifies that further reading is not necessary. Your thinking has not been labeled. Labels from your writing have been extracted and examined.
Bankmeister, JDM, D-Wil, and MODI, from reading your comments, I do not think you all are as much in disagreement as you think. I don’t want to sit here as some sort of magic arbitrater explaining who’s wrong and who’s right, but let me try to point out where there’s some common ground.
Bankmeister, some of your points are good, but realize that you made it hard for any of us to accept them by beginning your first comment in saying that D-Wil’s compilings are “somewhat unedited and painfully biased”. D-Wil posted both what the cops said in their report and what Benson said. How is that biased? Sure, D-Wil provided his own commentary underneath, but the quotes are just fine. It’s hard to respect the rest of your well-written comment when you begin your comment with an unfair attack.
Now as for good points, I believe you are making the point that just as white people may rush too quickly to judgment of other ethnicities, black people may rush too quickly to blame authority or make allowances. That’s a fair point…but if you look at D-Wil’s closing paragraphs, he says much the same thing, while pointing out that the black perspective should not be discredited compared to the white perspective. You all do disagree on the labels and sources for such actions, but I think the two of you may not be as far apart as you think.
JDM, you are certainly right that there are many races that have been persecuted. But remember, D-Wil is reacting to a specific case–Cedric Benson, a (minority) black who was arrested, and the reaction from the majority (which in this country happens to be white). He was saying two sides because there were only two sides in his particular story. And yes, D-Wil does focus more on black-white relationships, but that’s because that’s his race, that’s the story he knows. Similarly, I tend to focus more on secular-Christian conflicts in sports, because I’m a Christian; we try to write what we know.
Anyway, that’s my attempt at conciliation; perhaps you all are really far apart, but I wanted to give one shot at trying to reconcile the two streams of thought.
JDM-
I have relatives who live on the Osage reservation in Oklahoma. And as they say to the darker-skinned of us: “At least they gave us land and never made us slaves.”
…Chinese people???? Smuggled by Chinese people for ridiculous fares so they are indentured servants in a crime ring beginning and ending with —–Chinese people???
As I wrote:
When you show me another people(s) brought here, chained and prone in the hulls of ships to work as substitutes as farm animals, who were actively stripped of their culture, and taught to hate themselves, I’ll stretch this conversation beyond black and white.
Until that time I’ll continue to discuss racism in the manner I presently choose.
bankm-
All your pseudo-intellectual bluster is, in hip-hop [parlance - deaded - and here’s why:
The interviewer straight up tells Leitch he has a problem for making jokes about Indianapolis Colts Head Coach Tony Dungy not being very black. Here’s where I put down my self-awarded, non-credentialed “journalistic” pen, and pick up my gnawed-on, eraserless sports fan pencil. Imagine it has a dancing Snoopy with a Royals hat on or something.
Dude. Seriously? Tony freaking Dungy? Here’s an exercise: Put him next to Najeh Davenport, or Michael Irvin, or Dennis Rodman, or any other black athlete that, regardless of talent, has acted like a complete idiot in the past, and tell me it’s impossible to view Tony Dungy as non-black, regardless of whether the basis of comparison is skin hue or behavior tendencies. I’ll get serious about this in a second, but that is freaking hilarious. Anybody that fails to see the humor in that is blind.
This is not to say that white America, or brown America, or whatever, has painted the perfect example. Nobody has. But we see what Whitlock calls hip-hop America from blacks 98 per cent of the time….
Not humor. For Leitch. Or for you. ‘Cause if you saw me on the street and saw my skin hue (in the winter) and acted as a voyeur to observe my “behavioral tendencies” you’d view me as “non-black”, too… 98% of the time.
But.
Dude. Seriously.
Do keep your hand out my pocket.
Interesting point about the existence of random checkpoints on the water in Texas when such stops haven’t been approved on the highways. Seems to me there should be some consistency. Either you allow these things or you don’t.
I refrained from commenting after that last utterly non-sensical reply; the “(hue) in the winter” and “keep your hand out my pocket” segments being the most untranslatable. I’m eagerly awaiting your unbiased reaction to this , though, as I’m sure it will be chockfull of reasons why the authorities were in the wrong, Benson is innocent, and how he’s being attacked/profiled.
[…] waived Cedric Benson after a second alleged intoxication beef in sunny, sultry, Austin, Texas. The first was for” Boating While Black (with a bevy of white women)” on the party waters of Lake […]