King County Sheriff John Urquhart went after the NFL this week in regarding the league’s response to the Josh Brown domestic violence situation. As you know Josh Brown has been involved in over 20 domestic abuse complaints from his ex-wife and the details are disgusting.
According to ESPN, the NFL claimed its investigators repeatedly asked Sheriff Urquhart’s office for additional information on Brown but were denied. Brown was a member of the Seattle Seahawks during the time of the domestic abuse allegations. Urquhart said the investigator never identified himself and standard procedure is to not release information on an open case file. Urquhart further clarified, stating:
I would have said exactly the same thing, ‘we cannot release the case file.’ But since this is a hot-button item in the NFL, since it’s the NFL, we probably would have told them orally a little bit more about what we had. I don’t like to get pushed around by a bully.
The Sheriff’s comments were in regards to the NFL’s press statement which in part stated:
NFL investigators made repeated attempts — both orally and in writing — to obtain any and all evidence and relevant information in this case from the King County Sheriff’s Office. Each of those requests was denied and the Sheriff’s Office declined to provide any of the requested information, which ultimately limited our ability to fully investigate this matter. We concluded our own investigation, more than a year after the initial incident, based on the facts and evidence available to us at the time and after making exhaustive attempts to obtain information in a timely fashion. It is unfortunate that we did not have the benefit or knowledge of these materials at the time.
Smells like a cover job to me. The NFL knew all it needed to about the Josh Brown situation. If the league was serious about dealing with domestic violence this wouldn’t be an issue right now. Given the original incident and the fact the NFL knew about another incident at the Pro Bowl involving Brown and his wife, he should already be out of the league. This is the NFL covering itself and trying to put the blame on the Sheriff’s office. By insisting that they (NFL) asked for more information multiple times and were denied they can claim plausible deniability.
Sheriff Urquhart called into ESPN’s Outside the Lines to give additional context. See the video below.