Earlier this year, Robert Klemko of The MMQB and Sports Illustrated made news when he was briefly arrested in Ferguson, Missouri while covering the protests there.
Klemko is in trouble with the law again, and this time under much different, and more troublesome, circumstances.
According to CBS Chicago, Klemko is facing two charges after an incident with a cab driver in the city over the weekend. Klemko allegedly struck the cabbie then, and this is extremely bizarre, took off in the cab…
A writer for Sports Illustrated has been charged with hitting a cab driver in Chicago early Saturday morning.
Chicago Police say 27-year-old Robert Klemko is charged with misdemeanor battery and criminal trespass after a fight with a cab driver. Police say Klemko got into a verbal altercation with the driver, hit him and took off in his cab around 12:55 a.m. Saturday in the 900 block of Pine Grove.
A verbal altercation with a cab driver wouldn’t really be cause for concern. Punching a cab driver definitely would be, though. But then to also commandeer the vehicle?!?! Unless he was involved in a James Bond-style car chase scene, that’s probably not a wise idea. A local Chicago crime blog reports that police are considering the case a vehicular hijacking.
MMQB czar Peter King firmly stood by Klemko twice on Twitter Monday night, saying that he “loved” his staffer in spite of the charges.
Those tweets, cryptic as they may be, would lead one to believe there’s more to the story, as bad as this looks for Klemko and Sports Illustrated. Klemko has been a writer on the rise at SI/The MMQB so this is an unfortunate headline to see, regardless of the circumstances.
There’s been plenty of intense media coverage this year about how the NFL should discipline players and management who are charged with violent crimes and get in trouble with the law. But what about when it involves the media themselves? More on this story as it develops.
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