Texan Chester Pitts Arrested for Fleeing to Avoid a Traffic Ticket?

UPDATE: The Houston Chronicle reports that Pitts will play on Sunday. As I suspected as is typical with these types of facts, he says that the arrest was based on a misunderstanding. His apology for the arrest seems very sincere, given that his father has been a police officer for 30 years.

The Houston Chronicle reports that Texans guard Chester Pitts was charged with felony evading arrest for leaving the scene after being pulled over for making an illegal turn. The Chronicle report has the Houston Police Department's account of the arrest. A Texans spokesmen said that the team is looking into the details of the arrest and will have a comment at the appropriate time.

I am guessing there is more than this than is currently being reported. At 5 pm (likely after practice), why would Pitts flee the scene instead of just waiting for his ticket? There has to be more to this story then a guy wanting to avoid paying a small fine.

Putting my lawyer hat on for a moment, "felony evading arrest" sounds like something that is really bad, but just means under the law that you intentionally left the scene after an officer detains you. It becomes a felony in Texas if it happens with a car. It will be interesting to see what Pitts version of these events are because often these cases happen when a driver doesn't realize that they are being detained.

The driver thinks they were being just being warned, the officer goes off to deal with something else, and the driver just goes on his soon to be unmerry way. Then the officer then scrambles to his car to stop him and then driver pulls over when they notice the sirens. The above map shows how close the location of the original stop is to the second stop and how close it is to the Texans practice facilities. It's a little less than a mile, about .7.

What's up with enormous Texans offensive linemen getting busted for minor traffic offenses after leaving practice? Fred Weary was followed for miles by HPD for ~~driving while black~~ appearing suspicious in a high crime area and was pulled over for an illegal lane change. He was tasered twice by officers and charged with resisting arrest, charges that were thrown out of court in after a pretrial motion for a lack of probable cause. Weary is currently suing the city and the HPD officers involved in that arrest.

Who knows, maybe Pitts was worried that it was his turn to "ride the taser?" Probably not, because local radio reports claim that he was cooperative when the officer first pulled him over.

I am sure the complete story will come out soon as the Texans will be playing the Titans on Sunday, and people will be asking the Texans whether this incident affects his playing status.

Chester Pitts has been one of the most consistently good offensive linemen for the Texans. The Texans offensive line had its worst performance this year as a unit in their first matchup against Titans at home, so the prospects of facing the Titans on the road without Pitts would likely be grim, unless you are a Titan fan.

I will update this entry when I can replace speculation with additional facts about the situation and his playing status. Something seems just odd with this.

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

11-30-2007 @ 11:41AM

h.johns said...

This is just another case of poor usage of law
enforcement personnel. Instead of chasing illegal
aliens, carrying tons of drugs across our border,
our law enforcement people are chasing professional
athletes. Go figure!

11-30-2007 @ 12:24PM

twayne_05 said...

John we all know that in Houston the mayor and the Chief of police do not care about illegal Ailens or they would not just release them instead of calling homeland security and deporting them.

After reading the account the officer was trying to write two different cars tickets for the same offense (illegal turn) so it is quite possible that he told Pitts why he was stop and having his attention already divided failed to say don't move I will be right back after I give this other guy a ticket. I am sorry but this officer should not be stopping more than one vehicle at a time and having his attention deverted because that is when mistakes happen.

11-30-2007 @ 2:28PM

Jason said...

Sweet! I like the "driving while black" crossed out!!!...LOL

Of course that is the case! I don't know the area at all but i can relate it to areas i do know. Lets see, like you said a high crime area with a black man driving a nice car.....hmmmmmm he has to be a drug dealer right????....

Hey i guess with the incident that has happened to Taylor, being designated by the FUZZ fells much safer! Plus a small fine is a lot cheaper than paying for a body guard! Sometimes being "targeted" by the good guys with guns is the way to go!

11-30-2007 @ 10:57PM

James Martin said...

Jason:

I do know the area, as I am a season ticket holder, and work in the Medical Center ( Owner of Construction Firm ) It is not a high crime drug infested area.

I tend to agree with Steph on this one. I believe that he probably did not understand that he was being detained, and the media's telling of the story included "Led Police On A Brief Chase" is what you print when you want to sell the Chronicle (rag)

The truth will come out, SHAME ON YOU FOR COMPARING THIS TO THE SEAN TAYLOR MURDER!!!

You probably always believe what the newspapers, police, and government tell you. (Remember WMD's)

My prayers go out to the Taylor family

Dude Relax! the first part was about the Fred Weary incident.

The last part was a funny way of stating the truth! -Which why hide or lie about it?

p.s. I don't always believe what i read unless it's backed with factual data (evidence). Which is why i didn't believe everyones report that it was a "random" robbery! Now we see the truth that he was targeted!

12-01-2007 @ 9:04AM

donkeykong said...

First of all, you say something seems "just odd about this". Well, it's either A) a mutual misunderstanding, B) Pitts' fault C) the officers' Fault...which choice is odd? Since Pitts apologized it was probably B, unless he's the type to apologize for a mutual misundersanding (A), or the type that likes to take the fall for Officers (C). Secondly, a distance of .7 or 1 mile, when one goes the speed limit (people go the speed limit when cops are nearby), would mean a 1 minute and 30 second chase at 40 mph. 1 minute and 30 seconds is a long time to be chased.

A wait and see attitude ought to be taken, but evading arrest is a serious charge as it requires the officer to go above the speed limit and pass cars which can cause accidents.

It could very well be a misunderstanding. Or not.

12-01-2007 @ 9:17AM

Stephanie Stradley said...

donkeykong-

If Pitts misunderstood that he was supposed to stay there while the officer went to do something else. You know if he thought he was being given a warning and free to drive away, well then that is not "evading arrest" under Texas law because he didn't intentionally flee.

A lot of the commentary when this first happened was how could Pitts be so stupid. And I tried to explain that the answer is that these sorts of misunderstandings happen all the time with traffic tickets, especially when the officer runs off to do something else.

When I said that "evading arrest" sounds really awful but really isn't as bad as it sounds, what I was trying to convey is that the law doesn't require it to be a high speed chase, or that he was trying to be evasive. And that it is a felony just means that a car was involved. The headlines in the Houston Chronicle made it sound like it was a high speed chase or something.

A misunderstanding is something that is mutual. One person thinks one thing, and the other person thinks something else. That Pitts apologizes for the misunderstanding means that it is likely the sort of case that goes away because the prosecutor, with this set of facts (cooperative driver, officer left driver, driver goes off but staying on same street), isn't likely going to be able to prove he intended to flee.

Thanks for reading and commenting.
-Steph

12-02-2007 @ 8:04AM

Is it unfair to say if it were just a simple misunderstanding, and that misunderstanding is something that is mutual, then the officer would not have charged Mr. Pitts with felony evasion, since that would make the officer and Mr. Pitts look bad? Surely the officer felt that it wasn't his or her fault, or he or she wouldn't have charged Mr. Pitts with felony evasion? I think the officer feels blameless which is why he or she wrote the ticket for felony evasion.

I really don't see why misunderstandings like these should happen all the time. If the officer says stay put and don't go anywhere, then you shouldn't drive off after only a few minutes. You need more time before an excuse like "you took so long I thought you forgot about me" would have any bite to it.

If Mr. Pitts was cooperative then I think he's likely to not get prosecuted, but not because the officer was doing something else or because Mr. Pitts stayed on the same street, but because he was cooperative and didn't look like he was trying to evade arrest.

12-02-2007 @ 11:37AM

Jason:

All relaxed, thanks for the clarification, had too much caffiene on friday

jm