Former NFL quarterback and current Fox Sports analyst Mark Sanchez will face at least one felony charge for his role in a fight outside a pub in Indianapolis on Oct. 4 that culminated in his getting stabbed, according to local officials. Previously, Sanchez had been charged with three misdemeanors: battery resulting in injury, public intoxication, and unlawful entry of a motor vehicle. As of Monday, that first charge has since been upgraded to a felony: battery involving serious bodily injury.
“We are literally talking about people fighting about a parking spot,” Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears said during a press conference on Monday, per the Indianapolis Star.
"What began as a disagreement between a 38-year-old former professional athlete and a 69-year-old man should not have escalated into violence or left anyone seriously injured. As with any case, we will follow the facts and the law wherever they lead," Mears said.
The police affidavit, drawing on video footage from a Marriott hotel, describes Sanchez "grabbing and throwing" a 69-year-old truck driver who had parked his vehicle in an alley, near a loading dock, in order to collect used cooking oil. The man told police that he pepper-sprayed Sanchez, and thought, "This guy is trying to kill me," before stabbing Sanchez with a knife. At the hospital, Sanchez was arrested. He could not remember where his injuries occurred or who was responsible for them, telling a detective that all he could remember was "grabbing for a window."
The incident took place after midnight on Oct. 4. By that afternoon, ESPN reporter Adam Schefter was telling a different story about Sanchez, as detailed in Awful Announcing. First, Schefter tweeted that Sanchez "was stabbed in Indianapolis and is in the hospital in stable condition," citing Fox as his source. Then he shared a Fox statement about "thoughts and prayers" for Sanchez. And then Schefter posted the following tweet, which said that Sanchez "has been hospitalized after being stabbed during a robbery":
Schefter did not cite a source, and no one else had reported that Sanchez was involved in a robbery. The tweet was still up a day after it was posted, per The Ringer's Bryan Curtis; Schefter deleted the tweet later on Oct. 5 without explanation.
ESPN apparently has no protocol for its lead football insider announcing, without sourcing or a timely correction, that Sanchez was involved in a robbery. When the scoop hounds stumble into a news story with real-world ethical stakes, we often end up with strange and irresponsible reporting. (Think about Shams Charania credulously parroting Kyrie Irving's justification for not getting a vaccine.) When reporting on knife violence, one should not apply the same evidentiary standards used to blast out perfunctory updates about NFL training camp. Schefter, moving ahead as if nothing happened, eventually tweeted accurate information on Sanchez's charges on Monday afternoon.
