Colorado Rockies first baseman Todd Helton and San Francisco 49ers tight end Delanie Walker were both associated with DWI allegations for entirely different reasons this week. Helton was issued one, and Walker's aunt and uncle were killed in a car accident involving a drunk driver.
Sports Illustrated reported Wednesday night that a crash at 5:30 am on Monday killed Alice and Bryan Young. The two victims were not identified immediately because both cars in the accident caught fire. Twenty-six-year-old Nechole Thomas was the driver of the car that hit the Young's car. She is being held on $300,000 bail and was charged with reckless driving, drunk driving and two counts of vehicular homicide.
The New York Times reported Wednesday that Helton was arrested for drunk driving in the Denver suburb of Thornton.
Since the beginning of 2012, close to 25 professional athletes in American team sports have been charged with drunk driving. The Sporting News has a list of the 22 that happened through mid-September. In December, Dallas Cowboys nose tackle Josh Brent was intoxicated when getting into a car crash, killing his teammate and passenger, Jerry Brown, Jr.
Kansas City Chiefs late linebacker Jovan Belcher's murder-suicide on December 1 is believed to have been affected by alcohol consumption as well, since his blood alcohol content was twice the legal limit when he killed himself at a team facility, the New York Daily News says.
This Sporting News column makes a good point about athletes and their legal issues: when it comes to drunk driving, athletes have many more options to avoid it than the average person (and as a result, many fewer excuses when it happens). The piece points out that athletes' tendency to get a DWI is actually smaller than the average person's, so the moves made by the NFL and other groups are working.
For a list of athletes to be convicted of crimes, consult this Wikipedia page.
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