The traffic stop was routine enough — a driver running late, hitting 84 mph in a 55 mph zone. But something seemed odd.
“Why’s that name familiar?” the officer whispered to himself as he got back in his patrol car.
Why? Because it was Jadeveon Clowney.
The Gamecocks’ star defensive end was caught speeding, going well above the limit. Again.
This time, on the day after Christmas, he was racing into Columbia, late for the team’s departure for the Capital One Bowl in Orlando, Fla.
Three weeks earlier, a state trooper on I-77 north of Columbia clocked him going 40 mph over the speed limit — 110 mph in a 70 mph zone.
Upon his arrival in Orlando, Clowney posed for a picture with two City of Orlando police officers. He later tweeted the picture, captioning it “We in here me and my boys lol.”
“I did a lot of speeding,” Clowney said after the Capital One Bowl. “Everybody speeds, I think. Everybody don’t get caught. I got caught.”
Clowney wasn’t the only one to go well above the speed limit in the midst of his run-ins with police.
The state trooper who first pulled Clowney over topped 140 mph in pursuit of the Chrysler 300 the defensive end was driving, according to dashboard camera footage released under an open records request. He maintained speeds above 100 mph for at least a minute and 15 seconds, the video shows.
“Any time you drive 100 miles an hour, you’re taking enormous risk, and you’re putting everyone else at risk, both for Clowney and the cop,” said Geoffrey Alpert, a USC criminal justice professor and national expert on police pursuits. “You’re putting your life at risk at 140 miles an hour. I wouldn’t put my life at risk for a speeder.”
A Highway Patrol spokesman directed questions to the department’s pursuit policy, which says: “The pursuit is justified only when the necessity of the apprehension of a suspect outweighs the risks created by the pursuit.”
The tickets total $800, and while Clowney has hired an attorney to help fight them, coach Steve Spurrier joked in the days leading up to the bowl that the fines would be small in comparison to the payday Clowney, a top NFL draft prospect, was set to receive.
“At least he’ll have enough money to pay for it in a week or so,” Spurrier said. “Hopefully, they’ll send him (to driving school) after the bowl game.”