Well, Jack Jones had an interesting court date today in East Boston to answer the multiple gun charges levied against him after Friday night's arrest at Logan Airport.
Jones, through attorney Rose Scapicchio, entered a not-guilty plea, posted $30,000 cash bail and is due back in court on Aug. 18 for a probable cause hearing.
He was charged with two counts each of possession of a concealed weapon in a secure area of an airport, possession of ammunition without a firearm identification card, unlawful possession of a firearm, carrying a loaded firearm and possession of a large-capacity feeding device.
And then Scapicchio took it to another level outside the courthouse with her press conference. She has to aggressively defend her client, but this was something else. It felt like an SNL sketch.
She used the word thug 14 times, and gang seven times over five minutes.
"As far as Mr. Jones is concerned, it's the social media and the media, who have turned him into a thug, who have labeled him a thug with no evidence whatsoever," Scapicchio said off the top. "This is not a situation where Mr. Jones ever wanted to be a thug or thought of as a thug. But because he's a young black man, all of a sudden he's a thug, that's what's happened here. There's no evidence of that whatsoever and it's disrespectful to Mr. Jones and everyone else, every other black man in America who's young and black, to be called a thug because he happens to be black.
"This is the institutional racism that we deal with every day in the court system. There's no indication whatsoever he was in any way disrespectful. There's no implication at all that he did anything to say he wanted to be a gang member or a thug. He's a young black man charged with a crime. Therefore he must want to be a gang member. He must want to be a thug. That label that was attached to him from social media, almost got him fired, and it was completely unfounded.
"Mr. Jones did exactly what anyone else in his situation would have done. He cooperated with the police. He was arrested. He promised to be here. He showed up here this morning. He was polite to the police. He did nothing that would suggest that he was in any way trying to act as a thug, or wannabe gang member. That's made up from social media and that needs to stop. He's a young black man charged with a crime. Happens all the time.
"Let's just deal with the actual facts. And the facts of this case are that they found two guns in a carry-on bag that they said was his. He had no intention of bringing any guns into that Logan Airport that day. He had no intention of bringing any guns onto an airport that day. And I expect that the evidence is going to show that he had no knowledge of what was going on."
There were more new details in the arrest report:
- The two loaded firearms and two additional magazines were found in a black duffel bag with Jones' name on it in the x-ray machine. Jones' attorney didn't dispute that: "The guns were in a bag with his name on it, exactly."
- Jones declined to answer questions without an attorney.
- The guns and magazines were in an unlocked Glock handgun box. The guns had serial numbers on them. One gun had a 10-round magazine in it. The other had a double-stack 15-round magazine. There were also a 10-round and a 30-round double stack in the box.
- They watched the TSA checkpoint video that showed Jones was in possession and control of the bag as he placed it on the belt for the x-ray machine.
- The incident was visually and audibly recorded via a body-worn camera.
"All Mr. Jones wants to do is play football," Scapicchio said. "He doesn't want to be a distraction at all. He wants to support his family and play football. That's his goal here. But everyone turned him into this thug and want to be gangster. There was no evidence whatsoever. We're suggesting you do your research before you start writing like that.
"We're grateful to the Patriots organization and to the leaders of the Patriots, that they didn't believe in and feed into what was happening on social media, where people were saying he was a wannabe thug, and he was trying to get the guns past security. Nothing could be further from the truth. That's not what happened in this case. And I suggest we wait to hear all of the evidence before people jump to a conclusion."
BEDARD'S ANALYSIS
Well, Scapicchio isn't going to subtly defend her client. She's obviously going to use race as a component of her defense, and I'm sure she knows what she's doing, but I'm not sure this is going to help Jones with the Patriots.
The more she takes this approach and speaks out, the more negative attention it's going to shine on the Patriots. If this goes to trial, you can expect Scapicchio to dive into the race question with the TSA agents and the state police officer called to assist. Not sure the Krafts are going to like that one bit.
Jones, for the most part, was very respectful while his attorney spoke. But this lingering glance at a media member, after he asked a legit question, was another bad look for the cornerback.
I can tell you the Patriots are pretty ticked off about Jones putting himself in this situation given his history. Is that enough for the team to move on right now before his next court appearance? I can't tell you. This is literally Belichick weighing talent and trouble. I could see them cutting bait relatively soon. I could see them waiting, seeing if the league steps in. I mean, this thing probably isn't going to be adjudicated for at least a year. Are they going to be OK putting him on the field in the interim, with the possibility he might go to prison at some point?
My feeling is they wait for the probable cause hearing, Belichick swats away questions like he always does in the interim, and they make a decision after that.