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Last night, word came out that 49ers outside linebacker Ahmad Brooks was looking at a potential charge for felony or misdemeanor assault due to a fight with teammate Lamar Divens. The San Jose Mercury News broke the story, and eventually followed up with a copy of the arrest warrant application. Below is a copy of that arrest warrant. You can read through to get an idea of the events.
This is an odd case because while Brooks has not been charged yet, an arrest warrant application was completed at one point, and signed by a judge. According to the Merc, certain ranking officials in the DA's office intervened and told the court to hold off on the warrant. The Merc says sources told them some view the case as a wobbler (felony that could be charged as a misdemeanor) and some view it as a case to be dropped entirely.
You can read through the statements below. The case involves Brooks, Divens, a woman who appears to be Divens' wife, and two 49ers players. All the names except for Brooks' are redacted, but as Poldarn pointed out yesterday, you can make out enough of the names to figure out who was involved. Based on what we see, we can only conclude that Lawrence Okoye and Mike Purcell were on hand at the events, and provided statements (and they forgot to redact Purcell's name once). They have a W next to their names in the report, with W standing for witness. V is for victim and O is for officer. I'm not sure what the S next to Brooks' name stands for. The S next to Brooks name stands for suspect.
The charge is PC 245(a)(1), which is assault with a deadly weapon. Here is how it is described by the California code:
245. (a) (1) Any person who commits an assault upon the person of another with a deadly weapon or instrument other than a firearm or by any means of force likely to produce great bodily injury shall be punished by imprisonment in the state prison for two, three, or four years, or in a county jail for not exceeding one year, or by a fine not exceeding ten thousand dollars ($10,000), or by both the fine and imprisonment.
The sentence for felony assault ranges from a fine all the way up to four years in prison. If it was reduced to a misdemeanor assault, he would face a fine of up to $1,000 and/or up to six months in the county jail. If it was reduced to misdemeanor battery, he would face up to a $2,000 fine and/or up to six months in the county jail.
Now that this is in the news, I would hope the DA's office would make some kind of decision on how to pursue this. Divens told the cops initially he wanted to press charges, but changed his mind after talking with Brooks. We'll see what the DA's office decides to do with the case.