A UVA Football player is facing animal-cruelty charges in a troubling case in which a housekeeper at his apartment complex told authorities that she saw the player “punch his dog with a closed fist multiple times.”
At the very least, Tony Elliott has to sit our guy here, Solomon Beebe, the tailback transfer from UAB, until the case is resolved, right?
You can’t play a guy that the cops are saying punched a dog.
Right?
Beebe, who had been expected to be the top option at kick returner, is still on the online roster at the moment, but we’re not hearing any word on his status from UVA Athletics.
ICYMI
The Daily Progress – which broke the story – reported that Beebe was in court on Thursday for a hearing on the impoundment of the dog, a pit bull named Jeb.
The paper reported that Beebe told an Albemarle County General District Court judge that his father planned to drive up from the family home in Alabama to take care of the dog, who was taken into protective custody on Aug. 13.
The charges – three Class 1 misdemeanors – date to incidents alleged to have occurred on Aug. 10 and Aug. 12.
According to court documents, the housekeeper told authorities that she observed Beebe, who is 5’10”, 199 pounds, according to his bio on VirginiaSports.com, “hold his dog against the wall and punch his dog with a closed fist multiple times.”
The dog “was yelping in pain with each strike,” per the report.
A second incident involved Beebe allegedly holding the dog down and smacking him in the face twice.
Beebe was arrested and released on bail on Monday, according to online court records, which list his attorney as Thomas Weidner, a UVA Law alum based in Staunton who was in the news earlier in the summer after being given a public reprimand by the Virginia State Bar Disciplinary Board.
ICYMI
The online court records list an Oct. 1 date for an unspecified hearing in the Beebe matter.
No trial date has yet been set, which could complicate the matter of Beebe’s playing status.
According to the current UVA Athletics Student-Athlete Handbook, student-athletes are required to notify their head coach within 24 hours of an arrest, with a separate responsibility to notify the dean of students within 72 hours of an arrest.
The handbook doesn’t offer guidance on how ongoing criminal proceedings may affect playing status; as best I can tell, from several attempts to mine the Google machine, decisions on playing status are handled by our coaches on a case-by-case basis.
That said, again, you can’t play the kid, right?
Because if you do, what kind of message does that send?
People don’t want to cheer for a guy who we’re told punched his dog and made him yelp; we want to see karma enter the chat room.
Everybody’s innocent until proven guilty, sure – so, if Beebe wants to prove his innocence and get back to the playing field, direct the attorney to press for a speedy trial, which is a constitutional right afforded to us all.
Until then, we’re down a backup tailback, and somebody else returns kicks.
That’s how this one needs to play out, right?
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Chris Graham
