ATHENS — Speed was a factor when Georgia football player Sacovie White was arrested and jailed early Saturday morning for reckless driving, according to police.
The arresting officer’s report, obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday morning via an open-records request, said White was “traveling at a high speed” the wrong way down East Clayton Street with a passenger hanging out a window of his Orange Dodge Charger. Observed by an Athens-Clarke County police officer parked in his patrol car close by, White was pulled over at 2:06 a.m. Saturday at the corner of East Clayton and Lumpkin Street in downtown Athens.
White “showed complete disregard for the safety of his passengers, himself and innocent civilians” and “posed a threat to public safety” as the incident occurred during “a time of high pedestrian traffic as people were leaving bars and trying to catch Ubers,” according to the officer’s report.
Once stopped, however, White complied with police commands and was detained and searched without incident. Cited for reckless driving and driving the wrong way on a one-way street, White’s car was impounded and he was transported to Athens-Clarke County Jail. He was booked at 3:04 a.m. and released on $26 bond one hour later.
White signed with Georgia as a member of the 2024 recruiting class out of Cartersville, Ga. White caught 2 passes for 29 yards for a touchdown in Georgia’s spring game.
This is the second driving-related arrest of the year for the Georgia football team, with transfer running back Trevor Etienne getting arrested in March on four driving-related charges.
“I can only speak for my university, but I think we do it better than anybody in the country in terms of education, speakers,” Georgia coach Kirby Smart said following Etienne’s arrest. “To your point about the NIL, we’ve done studies and looked, we have more kids with vehicles now than we probably ever have. I can’t really say to the style of vehicles, but you can probably make an easy assumption that with more money they have an opportunity to have nicer cars. But, just the number of players with vehicles is higher, but that’s not any excuse for the ability to speed, it just means we have more opportunities to have traffic citations, which we don’t want.”
Georgia has not yet commented on the matter in an official capacity.
