On Wednesday, Washington DC attorney general Karl Racine promised a “major announcement” regarding the Washington Commanders on Thursday.
Racine’s announcement is expected to be regarding his office’s investigation into the organization’s workplace conduct issues or alleged financial improprieties. The team has stated that they’ve fully cooperated in the investigation.
However, Washington released an announcement on Wednesday evening in response to Racine.
Less than three months ago, a 23-year-old player on our team was shot multiple times, in broad daylight. Despite the out-of-control violent crime in DC, today the Washington Commanders learned for the first time on Twitter that the D.C. Attorney General will be holding a press conference to ‘make a major announcement’ related to the organization tomorrow.
The Commanders have fully cooperated with the AG’s investigation for nearly a year. As recently as Monday, a lawyer for the team met with the AG who did not suggest at that time that he intended to take any action and, in fact, revealed fundamental misunderstandings of the underlying facts. It is unfortunate that, in his final days in office, Mr. Racine appears more interested in making splashy headlines, based on offbeat legal theories, rather than doing the hard work of making the streets safe for our citizens, including bringing to justice the people who shot one of our players.
It was shocking the statement would reference rookie running back Brian Robinson Jr.’s shooting in response to Racine.
The news didn’t sit well with Robinson’s agent, Ryan Williams, who responded on Twitter.
Up until an hour ago, the Commanders handled the Brian Robinson situation with so much care, sincerity and class. And I was so grateful for all of it.
Although I know that there are some great humans in that building, whoever is hiding behind this statement is not one of them. https://t.co/cnD0DtUfqm
— Ryan Williams (@RyanWilliamsA1) November 10, 2022
Williams is right. There was absolutely no need for the team to reference what happened to Robinson in its petulant response to Racine’s announcement.
Unfortunately, this is another situation where the team mishandled something so minor, and head coach Ron Rivera and team president Jason Wright, who are innocent, are left to play damage control.