Pending Jacksonville Jaguars free-agent Lerentee McCray unfortunately found himself in trouble with the law earlier this month after he was arrested for leading the Fruitland Police Department of Central Florida on a high-speed chase. McCray was arrested and eventually released from the Lake County Jail of Tavares, Florida after paying a bond of $5,000.
According to reports, McCray gave police officers “an expletive hand gesture using his middle finger” as they trailed him to get him to pull over. After a while, though, the officers decided to call off the chase with McCray’s Dodge Ram being recklessly driven across multiple lanes.
However, on Wednesday, more video was released showing when police caught up with McCray at a 7-Eleven gas station as he attempted to purchase gas for an officer who was driving an SUV. The officer declined several times, at one point shoving McCray when he tried to stop the officer from pulling the gas nozzle out of his vehicle. The situation didn’t escalate any further, but McCray did walk back to his truck to retrieve a child’s bicycle, then placed it on his truck’s windshield.
According to News4Jax, this was one of the incidents that resulted in the officers documenting “erratic” behavior on McCray’s part in their report. Eventually, McCray was seen getting on the ground (though it’s not clear if he was asked to do so), and an officer can be heard telling a fellow officer to put him in cuffs. News4Jax also reported that marijuana was found in his vehicle.
McCray was taken to a hospital at some point in the process. When questioned there by officers, McCray reportedly responded to one question by saying, “Oh that was you? My bad.”
As stated in the initial report, McCray was arrested for fleeing and eluding police with disregard of safety to persons or property – a second-degree felony. McCray is now scheduled for arraignment Feb. 14. McCray was also cited for speeding after radars recorded him at 80 mph in a 50 mph zone just after 1 a.m. EST on Sunday.
McCray joined the Jags in 2017 and has been with the team since, though he did opt out in 2020 when the coronavirus pandemic started. He’s mostly contributed on special teams while sporadically helping out on defense and has a total of 75 tackles and four sacks throughout 84 games.