Records showed that police received seven 911 calls reporting threatening behavior by Atlanta Falcons linebacker James Pearce Jr. before he was ultimately arrested in February, ESPN reported Monday.
The names of the callers were redacted in the documents ESPN obtained, but between November and February police were dispatched seven times to a Florida home that belonged to WNBA player Rickea Jackson, and no arrests were made.
Pearce was arrested on Feb. 7 and faces five felony charges after he allegedly struck a police officer with his vehicle while evading arrest and pursuing Jackson before crashing his vehicle into hers. Per the criminal complaint, the charges against Pearce include aggravated battery with a deadly weapon (two counts), aggravated stalking, fleeing police officers and aggravated battery of a law enforcement officer.
He also faces a misdemeanor count of resisting an officer without violence to his person along with nine traffic citations.
Jackson, Pearce and the Falcons have not commented. Jackson’s attorneys previously expressed that she is willing to testify against Pearce in a potential domestic violence trial. An NFL spokesperson told ESPN that Pearce’s case was being reviewed under the league’s personal conduct policy.
The new report revealed that Police did tell Pearce to stay away from the home of his ex-girlfriend on Jan. 13.
There were two 911 calls made Nov. 24 and 25. The caller said Pearce had knocked on the door of her Doral, Fla., residence and called a landline several times, but that she would not open the door for him and turned him away. In the second call, she indicated that Pearce’s father told her the linebacker would be returning. Though he never did, she felt unsafe and stayed the night elsewhere.
The documents indicated that Pearce and Jackson had an on-again, off-again relationship that lasted 3-4 years and they sometimes lived together in the Doral home.
On Feb. 1, police responded to a 911 call for a domestic disturbance, but the document was heavily redacted. The next day, police returned to the home and were told by a private security guard that Pearce had been stalking his client.
The seven 911 calls led up to a car chase Feb. 7 that finally prompted Pearce’s arrest. Jackson, a forward with the Los Angeles Sparks, told police Pearce followed her in a white Lamborghini SUV and tried to open her car door on the driver’s side at a red light.
Jackson drove away but Pearce continued to follow her as she drove toward the Doral (Florida) Police Department. Jackson told police Pearce collided into the rear of her vehicle near the police station, then ran his vehicle into hers head-on.
