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Article on Stephen Roberts in Opelika Paper


DivisionN

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The story did not contain too much new information but what I read sounded like it really wasn't that big a deal. Roberts was in a car that was stopped (the story did not say why). Roberts was in the passenger seat and jumped out and ran. When they caught up to him, he did not resist arrest. The story says that he was sober.  No reason given for why he ran. If he had not run, I don't think we would even be talking about this. 

 

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7 minutes ago, DivisionN said:

The story did not contain too much new information but what I read sounded like it really wasn't that big a deal. Roberts was in a car that was stopped (the story did not say why). Roberts was in the passenger seat and jumped out and ran. When they caught up to him, he did not resist arrest. The story says that he was sober.  No reason given for why he ran. If he had not run, I don't think we would even be talking about this. 

 

Could you post a link? please

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3 hours ago, augolf1716 said:

Could you post a link? please

Sorry. I read this from the sports section of the Opelika-Auburn News. Actual newspaper copy. They may have it online. I don't know. I got it from the paperbox. Old school.

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He could have ran because he knew about the weapon in the car and knew getting caught would get him in trouble so he ran.  My cousin did something similar.  He was about to report for basic training and was speeding on his bike.  The cops were trying to pull him over so he tried to speed away knowing any ticket/arrest would get him booted.  Other than that it was a simple speeding ticket

People don't think clearly when they panic.  Cam Newton did the same thing throwing that laptop out of the window.   

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11 hours ago, DivisionN said:

The story did not contain too much new information but what I read sounded like it really wasn't that big a deal. Roberts was in a car that was stopped (the story did not say why). Roberts was in the passenger seat and jumped out and ran. When they caught up to him, he did not resist arrest. The story says that he was sober.  No reason given for why he ran. If he had not run, I don't think we would even be talking about this. 

 

Maybe we should put the cop that caught him at DB

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7 hours ago, ScottsboroAuburnFan said:

I've ran twice to avoid a ticket,and escaped both times. I hid and watched the cop fly by with blue lights on. I wasnt hiding anything but didn't want a ticket.

Were you driving a late 70's black Trans-Am with gold trim?

..and did you have a long way to go and a short time to get there?

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7 hours ago, ScottsboroAuburnFan said:

I've ran twice to avoid a ticket,and escaped both times. I hid and watched the cop fly by with blue lights on. I wasnt hiding anything but didn't want a ticket.

Still have any college football eligibility?

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Truth be told there are hundreds just like this everyday. The only reason this is a story is because he is a football player at a major university. So because of his success we are going to penalize him worse than someone who wasn't as successful, As I said most of us have done something in our younger yers we wish we hadn't. In my case it was a lot of things. Most cases like this are usually handled very mildly at the court level as they should be. He wasn't harming anyone. Did not resist the officer. So the only thing was he made a bad judgement call. As far as I am concerned and it is not my place to be at all. If Gus gives him some stairs to run then that would be fine. I can promise you I spent a lot of time in those bleachers running stairs and it worked well for me. :-)   WDE

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Still few details but I have more questions. Was the gun in the car or on him? Was it really his or the drivers? Did he stop when he realized what a foolish thing he did or did a cop actually catch him?   Kid has never been in trouble. Cut him a break. 

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24 minutes ago, alexava said:

Still few details but I have more questions. Was the gun in the car or on him? Was it really his or the drivers? Did he stop when he realized what a foolish thing he did or did a cop actually catch him?   Kid has never been in trouble. Cut him a break. 

Don't know for sure but the officer did state that he did not resist arrest. I suspect that Gus has already put down the word after JR that he wanted no distractions. I suspect ( means I don't know) that he was out riding around with friends and in some minor mischief and initially thought to run so Gus did not find out . After realizing the severity of running decide to follow instructions. Again just my thought. Also by what i read (again not that I know) I suspect he had the gun on his person and without a concealed permit. Still while I would be upset with why he thought riding around looking cool with a gun was a good idea, I still no signs of doing anything malicious during the  incident and he was reported to not be under the  influence of drugs or alcohol. JMO. WDE

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16 minutes ago, Eagle Eye 7 said:

Don't know for sure but the officer did state that he did not resist arrest. I suspect that Gus has already put down the word after JR that he wanted no distractions. I suspect ( means I don't know) that he was out riding around with friends and in some minor mischief and initially thought to run so Gus did not find out . After realizing the severity of running decide to follow instructions. Again just my thought. Also by what i read (again not that I know) I suspect he had the gun on his person and without a concealed permit. Still while I would be upset with why he thought riding around looking cool with a gun was a good idea, I still no signs of doing anything malicious during the  incident and he was reported to not be under the  influence of drugs or alcohol. JMO. WDE

when someone runs then gives up i usually suspect they are just creating enough distance to ditch evidence (usually drugs). because i know of a few times that happened. if that was the case he would have ditched the gun too. i think he may have just panicked and reacted then came to his senses. still need to get rid of the gun or get licensed. i can see Gus taking care of this internally without much blowback. kid needs to suffer some type consequence to fit the offense but we don't.

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2 hours ago, AUsince72 said:

Were you driving a late 70's black Trans-Am with gold trim?

..and did you have a long way to go and a short time to get there?

Lexus once and F150 other time, also I know my area better than the state police.

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Remember, eluding can sometimes mean you took action to hide like pulling the car over to a dark area as opposed to resisting arrest. If the officer had been forced to give chase there would have not been an eluding charge but a resisting arrest.He was a passenger so that charge will most likely be dropped. The gun charge will probably cost him some money though. WDE

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1 hour ago, Eagle Eye 7 said:

Remember, eluding can sometimes mean you took action to hide like pulling the car over to a dark area as opposed to resisting arrest.

Stephen was not the driver, so there's no way he would be charged with eluding unless it was on foot.

All the jokes about cops chasing him down aside, the reality is that no cop is going to catch him in a foot race.  It sounds to me like he panicked when he saw the blue lights.  He didn't want to risk sitting out the season, so he opened the car door and bailed.  After a few seconds, he came to his senses and realized he would eventually be caught, so he did the wise thing and just gave up. I wasn't there.  I have no inside knowledge.  This is just the most likely scenario I can think of based on the news reports released thus far.

Honestly, this doesn't sound like that big of a deal to me -- at least not compared to what some AU players have been involved in during the past decade.  I would suspect some internal punishment, some "dog house" time from Gus and maybe a game or two suspension.  I also hope he is given some internal "counseling" on selecting his friends more carefully and why he needs to be packing heat.  He is from Opelika and it sounds like he still has some bad influences there.  It is unfortunate that those influences live so close to where he goes to college.

It will suck if he is suspended for Clemson, though.  If there is one place we can't handle suspensions it is at DB.

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22 minutes ago, AcUmen said:

Stephen was not the driver, so there's no way he would be charged with eluding unless it was on foot.

All the jokes about cops chasing him down aside, the reality is that no cop is going to catch him in a foot race.  It sounds to me like he panicked when he saw the blue lights.  He didn't want to risk sitting out the season, so he opened the car door and bailed.  After a few seconds, he came to his senses and realized he would eventually be caught, so he did the wise thing and just gave up. I wasn't there.  I have no inside knowledge.  This is just the most likely scenario I can think of based on the news reports released thus far.

Honestly, this doesn't sound like that big of a deal to me -- at least not compared to what some AU players have been involved in during the past decade.  I would suspect some internal punishment, some "dog house" time from Gus and maybe a game or two suspension.  I also hope he is given some internal "counseling" on selecting his friends more carefully and why he needs to be packing heat.  He is from Opelika and it sounds like he still has some bad influences there.  It is unfortunate that those influences live so close to where he goes to college.

It will suck if he is suspended for Clemson, though.  If there is one place we can't handle suspensions it is at DB.

mostly agree but i cant blame bad influences from home if they didn't get arrested or tell him to take the gun and run. so far we just don't know.

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Don't take this the wrong way, but in some neighborhoods the feeling is that if confronted by police the best thing to do is to run.  This comes from peers, not parents.  The parents preach cooperation with law enforcement but as we all know, peer influence is strong, sometimes stronger than parental influence.  It could be that Stephen's initial instinct was to flee but he quickly came to his senses and cooperated.  I hope that is the case.

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6 hours ago, alexava said:

mostly agree but i cant blame bad influences from home if they didn't get arrested or tell him to take the gun and run. so far we just don't know.

Sorry to break it to everyone but my wife is teacher at Opelika High School. She taught both Roberts and Mitchel. In her opinion Mitchel needed some direction and help. Stephen is a good kid, sorry a good young man that needs to mature.

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From my interpretation of what I've heard/read, the gun was in the car, not on him. Also, the eluding vs resisting sounds to be entirely based around what happened when the police got to him. Eluding = running. Resisting = not complying when they caught him, fighting while they tried to cuff him, etc. Sounds to me more like "Oh crap this won't be good when coach finds out so I better bolt" than anything else. Got caught, knows better than to tussle with officers, and complied at that point. Just my $0.02, I know nothing more factually than what anyone else has read on the interwebs.

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Charleston, that's kind of the read I have on it, too. Could just be a kid who knows he has a lot to lose and freaked out at the possibility of getting in trouble.

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