Tom GantertSouth Bend, IN – A Notre Dame football player was arrested on Monday after he assaulted two police officers who were trying to help him.
Javon McKinley, a wide receiver for the Fighting Irish, returned to the Notre Dame University campus in an Uber at about 4 a.m. on Feb. 11, ND Insider reported.
The probable cause affidavit said the 20-year-old McKinley was passed out in the back of the Uber, and Notre Dame police responded to try and wake him up.
Officers said they could smell alcohol on the breath of the underage football player.
The Indianapolis Star reported that McKinley “required a series of (sternum) rubs to regain consciousness,” according to the police report.
The police report said McKinley was walking unsteadily, and that Notre Dame Security Police Officers Laurie Steffen and Adis Ibrekic were walking him back to his dorm when he abruptly stopped and refused to continue with them, ND Insider reported.
Court documents said that Officers Steffan and Ibrekic explained to McKinley they wanted to get him safely out of the cold and into his dorm.
But the six-foot-two-inch, 219-pound football player tensed up and tried to leave in the opposite direction, according to ND Insider.
The officers reportedly identified themselves as campus police and tried to restrain McKinley, but he wasn’t having it.
He punched both the male and the female police officer as they tried to control him, ND Insider reported.
Eventually, some Notre Dame firefighters jumped in to assist the officers, and the football player was handcuffed and arrested.
He was transported to the St. Joseph County Jail where authorities administered a breath test that confirmed the consumption of alcohol, according to court records.
McKinley was charged with two Class A misdemeanor counts of battery and one Class C misdemeanor count of illegal consumption of alcohol, according to the Indianapolis Star.
He was released on a $250 bond on Monday afternoon.
McKinley joined the Fighting Irish as “one of the most prolific wide receivers in the nation” when he finished high school, according to his team bio, the New York Post reported.
He played in six games as a freshman at Notre Dame in the 2016 season, and then sat out the 2017 season as a redshirt while he recovered from a broken fibula.
The wide receiver played in four games in the 2018 season, but did not take the field during Notre Dame’s Cotton Bowl game against Clemson.
There was much speculation on social media that McKinley’s time with the Fighting Irish was up.
“I’ll be stunned if this guy ever plays a down for the Irish,” Indianapolis Star sports columnist Greg Doyle tweeted late on Monday night.
But the school hasn’t said if they’re considering kicking McKinley off the team or out of school after his attack on campus police.
“The incident is being handled by the criminal justice system,” Notre Dame Spokesperson Dennis Brown said in a statement. “As for internal discipline, we do not publicly discuss specific cases and impose sanctions as warranted.”