Tallahassee police officers did not properly handle a car accident involving two Florida State football players, according to a report from The New York Times.
Junior defensive backs P.J. Williams and Ronald Darby fled the scene of the accident, which occurred at 2:37 a.m. on Oct. 5, after a car driven by Williams collided with another vehicle, according to the Times. Tallahassee police issued Williams two traffic tickets after initially labeling the incident a hit-and-run.
Darby was one of two passengers in the car driven by Williams, who had a suspended license, according to the Times.
The officers did not subject Williams to an alcohol test or indicate in their report of the incident whether they asked Williams if he had consumed alcohol or why he left the scene of the crash, the Times found. In addition, police told the Times a technical glitch was the reason the case was not made public on an online database of police calls.
According to the Times, the officers said in their report that Williams was not charged because he returned about 20 minutes later despite police not asking him to do so. That treatment, the Times found, is different from how officers handled a less serious car accident last month.
The TPD supplied the Times with seven other cases wherein a person did not face charges for a hit-and-run despite fleeing the scene of the incident. But the Times determined that none of those cases could be compared "in severity or circumstances" to the crash involving the Florida State players.
The Times reports that "by the next day, it was as if the hit and run had never happened."
