It is a dangerous time to live, work, or hang out in many of our major cities. Crime is rampant, homelessness is an epidemic, and open-air drug use is all to common.
These issues aren’t just confined to the large coastal cities like New York, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. Middle America has its issues as well. Chicago is decaying in real time, St Louis is in trouble, and Detroit is, well, Detroit.
Cleveland appears to have stepped up its efforts in its quest to be as dangerous as much larger cities. Over the weekend, not one or two Cleveland Browns players were robbed, but three! Take that, Chicago!
In two separate incidents over the weekend, two Browns players were robbed at gunpoint, and a third had his car stolen from a parking garage. It was a tougher weekend than usual to be a Cleveland Brown.
Greg Newsome II and Perrion Winfrey were robbed at gunpoint after leaving a Cleveland nightclub late Sunday night/Monday morning. Allegedly six masked gunmen were waiting in their own car for the two to leave the club. When they got to their vehicle, the crooks jumped out of their own vehicle and robbed the players.
The armed robbers got away with the two men’s jewelry, and to add insult to injury, took Newsome’s truck. It’s unclear why athletes insist on wearing thousands of dollars worth of jewelry, or even drive their own vehicles after a night of drinking at the club, especially in a place like Cleveland.
The other player, Demetric Felton, had his vehicle stolen from the parking garage in his own complex. Usually Sunday is the worst day to be a Cleveland Browns player, but it was a busy weekend.
The string of thefts comes at a bad time for the Browns organization, as the team is set to hold it’s mandatory minicamp this week. The team holds organized activities outside of Cleveland in Berea, Ohio and this is the last organized activity until training camp in August. Certainly the coaching staff would like to hope everyone’s focus is on football, but that likely won’t be the case.
The organization is remaining tight lipped regarding the robberies, with head coach Kevin Stefanski simply saying: “We want everybody to be safe and we want to get violent people off of our streets.”
It is a statement as vanilla as the preseason playbook, but Stefanski indicated he couldn’t say more due to the ongoing investigation. Perhaps there are details at play that could shed a bad light on the players in question or the organization, but for now that is simply speculation.
It’s a cruel world we live in🙏🏽
— Greg Newsome II (@gnewsii) June 6, 2023
Greg Newsome II was the 26th pick in the 2021 draft and immediately earned a starting cornerback job, logging 26 starts in 27 career games. He is a budding star.
Person Winfrey was a 4th round pick last year, and though he didn’t start any games, he earned a role in the defensive line rotation.
Demetric Felton was a 6th round pick in 2021 at running back, and has served as a backup and third down back. It is unfortunate that he was also involved, as he was simply at home when he was victimized. There was also no information on his case.
It is a recurring theme in the sports world. Highly paid professional athletes wearing sometimes hundreds of thousand of dollars in jewelry and driving expensive vehicles. While they should have that right, they should also bear in mind that in Joe Biden’s America, no one is safe.
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