Tatupu enters DUI plea, NFL needs to punish too

June 17, 2008   ·   Paul Raymond   ·   Jump to comments

Seattle Seahawks Lofa Tatupu had a court appearance today over his May DUI arrest. A little background on the situation for those that don’t know. On May 10th, Tatupu failed three field sobriety tests and then blew two breath tests that registered a .155 and .158. The legal limit is a .08 so Tatupu was clearly over intoxicated. Here’s the original report via the Seattle Times. Surprisingly, Tatupu’s lawyer entered a not guilty plea for the linebacker today.

Lofa was present for the court proceeding, but his lawyer Jon Scott Fox spoke for him. Due to the not guilty plea, the judge ordered Tatupu to come back August 4th for a pretrial hearing. That in itself is a problem as it falls during training camp, his lawyer successfully negotiated to have the pretrial moved up to July 7th. (Guess the judge is a Seahawks fan). More then likely thou, this won’t even go to trial, as his lawyer has been speaking with Kirkland city prosecutors to try and resolve the case.

“This is done to preserve the status quo and to leave all of our options open,” Fox said. “Between now and the pretrial conference, we intend to examine all of the legal and factual issues in this case. We’ve already begun that process. We also intend to move forward towards a positive resolution.”

The thing that kills me is that it doesn’t sound like the NFL is going to punish him at all for this. There may be a small fine, but definitely not a suspension. The league is so strict on their substance abuse policy but not alcohol. If you talk to any recovering alcoholic and I’m sure they’ll tell you that alcohol is just about or even more dangerous then any of the drugs they test for. If not to the individual, but also to the general public. Lofa was caught speeding in the middle of the night, completely wasted, I’m sure that’s a lot worse then Terrell Owens smoking a joint inside his mansion. Now we also have Oakland Raiders Javon Walker found unconscious beaten and robbed out in Las Vegas. The root of that problem also involves alcohol.

It’s time the NFL steps up and does something about alcohol. In situations like Tatupu their needs to be some sort of punishment, he endangered the community and the fans that worship him ever Sunday afternoon. The league needs to do a better job counseling their employees, the players, on alcohol and do a better job getting at risk players help.

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