However it ended up happening, UVA Football coach Tony Elliott has suspended backup tailback Solomon Beebe, who was arrested a week ago on three pretty disturbing animal-cruelty charges, from the team.
UVA Athletics didn’t exactly go out of its way to make this known. No release, nothing in the transcript from the weekly presser with Elliott on Tuesday.
Just Elliott apparently telling reporters either ahead of or after the presser that Beebe is “currently suspended indefinitely from competition.”
“He’s still a member of our team,” Elliott said, per reporting from Greg Madia at The Daily Progress, and, indeed, Beebe is still listed on the UVA Football roster page on VirginiaSports.com.
“We take very seriously the responsibility that we have to represent the University of Virginia,” Elliott said. “Out of respect for the legal process, I won’t make any more comments related to his situation at this time.”
We wrote yesterday about how it had been several days since Beebe, who transferred in from UAB in the spring semester, was in court for a hearing on the impoundment of the dog, a pit bull named Jeb, with no word from anybody in the program about the player’s status.
ICYMI
Poor little Jeb was taken into protective custody on Aug. 13, a day after a housekeeper at his apartment complex told authorities that she saw the player “punch his dog with a closed fist multiple times,” one of three alleged instances involving abuse of the dog in a three-day period.
The report in the Progress has more – most notably, a report from an animal-control officer from the Albemarle County Police Department who said he viewed security camera footage from the night of Aug. 10 showing Beebe “striking his dog no less than 7 times and carrying it off the ground by the neck” while in a dog park.
“At the time of the incident, the dog did not appear to be attacking him and was on leash under his control,” the report, from an ACPD officer named Justin Gibson, offered up.
“Immediately following the incident, the dog reacted to Solomon Beebe with clear signs of fear, taking a submissive and defensive posture as if expecting to be struck again,” Gibson wrote in his report.
We don’t need a guy like that getting backup carries and returning kicks.
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Chris Graham
