The Seahawks probably don’t have many warm, fuzzy feelings about the Patriots in the aftermath of Super Bowl XLIX, but the defending Super Bowl champions have definitely helped the two-time defending NFC champions in one respect recently. The Ted Wells report has drawn plenty of attention away from the controversy regarding Seattle’s decision to use a second-round pick on former Michigan defensive end Frank Clark.
To summarize, the Seahawks drafted him despite a domestic violence incident. They told him they couldn’t draft him with the charges still pending, so Clark got the charges resolved for roughly the price of a speeding ticket. And the Seahawks apparently didn’t talk to any of the witnesses identified in the original police report -- including neutral third parties with no reason to tell anything other than the truth.
Via Geoff Baker and Lewis Kamb of the Seattle Times, there’s more. In a separate document generated the day after the incident at a Sandusky, Ohio hotel, the manager of the hotel told police that Clark both threatened and physically contacted her.
Stephanie Burkhardt told authorities, “I will hit you like I hit her.” According to Burkhardt, Clark then “shouldered her out of the way.”
Burkhardt reiterated her version of the events via phone to the Times.
“Yes, he said it,” Burkhardt said. “I would never lie about something like that.”
At the time, police gave Burkhardt the option to press charges against Clark, but she declined. However, prosecutors never contacted Burkhardt.
“I don’t know why they didn’t even question me about it,” Burkhardt said regarding the prosecutor’s office. “He straight up admitted to hitting her, and they didn’t do anything about it.”
The Seahawks have said that they wouldn’t draft a player who struck a woman. That’s an easy principle to espouse when remaining consciously ignorant of the player’s conduct. The question now becomes whether the Seahawks will continue to behave like ostriches -- or whether they’ll admit that they didn’t know enough before drafting him, that they know more now, that they wouldn’t have drafted Clark if they knew eight days ago what they know now, and that they’re now renouncing their rights to Clark.
It’s not unprecedented. In 1996, the Patriots severed ties with defensive tackle Christian Peter only three days after drafting him in round three.