So far, suspended Dolphins defensive end Derrick Shelby hasn’t made any comments since being arrested for resisting arrest without violence and suspended by the team.
But after his bloodied and battered mugshot has been splashed across the internet for nearly a week, those close to him say the real story is different than the police report.
The cop version (abridged) is that Shelby got handsy with a female bar patron, was thrown out of a club, took a threatening stance, and was beaten down and tased three times to be taken into custody.
According to Andrew Abramson of the Palm Beach Post, Shelby has told associates there’s much more to the story.
His version is that the initial accusation was false, and had racial undertones (since the accuser was white). He then denied doing anything wrong to the policeman trying to throw him out of the club, and that the cops were aggressive throwing him out. When he pulled out his phone to begin filming the incident, the cops “became infuriated,” which might explain the way Shelby ended up looking in the mug shot.
Shelby could have avoided the whole thing by getting in a car and leaving. But there are also two sides to every story, and until his trial, it’s unclear which will be heard most clearly, especially at a time of increased sensitivity to football players and off-field violence.