A vehicle registered to Tampa Bay Buccaneers wide receiver DeSean Jackson is the subject of an investigation by Tampa police, according to NFL Network’s Mike Garafalo, after the car was involved in a Christmas Eve crash and found to contain both marijuana and hollow-point bullets.
Jackson was not driving the car when it struck a tree, a spokesperson for the former Pro Bowler told Garafalo, adding neither the marijuana nor the bullets belonged to him. But a police report, cited in the NFL Network story, indicates that an investigation is still underway after the vehicle, a Chevy Silverado, was “found abandoned.”
The two .38 caliber bullets found inside the car are legal in Florida, but possession of less than 20 grams of marijuana is considered a misdemeanor, as Garafalo noted, and 6.3 grams were discovered inside the Silverado. The driver of the car, meanwhile, has not been identified but, per the police report, “fled the scene” after veering from the road and hitting a tree.
“It was a friend of DeSean’s who borrowed his car while he was out of town,” Denise White, a representative for Jackson, said. “None of what was in the car was his obviously. He’s dealing with the person that was using it without his knowledge privately. The incident is being handled.”
Jackson is in the first year of a three-year contract with the Buccaneers. The 31-year-old receiver has never been arrested during his NFL career, but he made headlines in 2014 when he admitted to associating with gang members. Those comments came after a detailed NJ.com report that prefaced his abrupt release from the Philadelphia Eagles that year — a report that connected Jackson to a Los Angeles gang — but also, as the Seattle Seahawks’ Richard Sherman said, it did not mean Jackson himself was in the wrong.
credit:cbssports.com