Xavier Worthy walked out of the Williamson County jail in Texas late Saturday, a free man who does not face assault charges but only hours earlier weathered a conviction for them.
Not in court, to be clear.
But by the public.
Worthy was arrested Friday, a month after the conclusion of his rookie season with the Kansas City Chiefs, and booked into jail on suspicion of assault of a family member by impeding breathing/circulation, a third-degree felony.
But after “further investigation by the Williamson County Sheriff’s Office” and “further discussion with a third-party witness,” the district attorney’s office declined the case a day later, that office told the Austin American-Statesman in a statement.
It’s how the process is designed to work.
If only we could all let it play out.
There is no process publicly anymore, no presumption of innocence, no patience to wait before turning to a game of one-upmanship: Who can best phrase their conclusions in 280 characters?
The most appropriate immediate response has become embarrassingly difficult for so many to say, merely because it is among our most boring retorts:
“I don’t know.”
There exists a growing discomfort to utter the phrase. That discomfort is buoyed by participation in quick-reaction theater without the fear of consequences, because, well, there are no consequences.
Amid the thousands of regrettable judgments in the aftermath of an arrest, there are but a handful of lives altered. Worthy spent all of 24 hours in a jail cell but returns home to a completely different world. The rest of us move on with ours.
That ought to be a lesson tucked into those 24 hours, one that probably and unfortunately won’t be learned. That lesson applies to the latest development, too.
The rush to judgment did not dissipate with Worthy’s release. It just flipped to the other side of the ledger. No one, at least of this writing, has been charged with a crime, let alone convicted of one. Shouldn’t that be the most important thing? Or at least matter at all?
To be sure, there is something unsettling about the events surrounding this situation in Texas, where Worthy attended college. And it’s a logical deduction that someone involved has presented an inaccurate story, or partially inaccurate story, given the contrasting nature of an allegation that could trigger an arrest and, subsequently, a district attorney declining to file charges. You can be revolted by a story yet remain careful not to advertise guilt.
We don’t know what did or didn’t happen in Worthy’s home Friday, nor anything preceding it. That remains true today. The district attorney’s office is not accepting the case but still noted it will continue to evaluate should additional information become available, as is customary.
The presumption of innocence for all parties endures.
In theory.
Or in idealism, apparently.
The accusation made against Worthy is especially serious, as are those made in response by Worthy’s attorneys in Texas. It cannot be our jobs — yours, mine, anyone’s — to determine their accuracy just minutes, or a few seconds, after an arrest. What is the rush? Engagement? For what purpose? A jolt of adrenaline?
We cannot pretend the myriad public conclusions included much of anything more than seeing the mugshot of a man in an orange jumpsuit on Friday night. Might we be able to wait until sometime, oh, I don’t know, after Saturday morning to reach a conclusion on the merits of it?
This isn’t presented as a defense of Xavier Worthy. It a rebuke of the order of operations.
That reprimand would remain in place regardless of the outcome, because the outcome does not determine the veracity in the process.
Xavier Worthy is not the story here. Not really, anyway. He is the latest example.
Five years ago, The Star and its parent company, McClatchy, stopped publishing mugshots, with few exceptions, because doing so prompted the presumption of guilt. Publication of mugshots was shown to have “lasting effects on both the people photographed and marginalized communities,” the policy reads.
An arrest might be temporary, perhaps eventually shown to be without merit, even, but those photographs were forever.
As Worthy sat at home Sunday morning, posting a photograph of a new haircut with a caption reading “New beginnings,” it was lost into the social media sea of a picture authorities had snapped a day and a half earlier. The caption itself is impractical, if not impossible, for Worthy now.
What percentage of those who saw Worthy’s mugshot — or particularly those who went a step further and commented on his arrest — know the next development in the story? How many care to know?
If you Googled his name Saturday, before the moment he was being released from jail, the second-most prominently displayed article was a commentary about Worthy’s involvement in a domestic violence incident. Not a word reserved for the next step in the case, or the lack of a next step.
Worthy would soon thereafter be free, legally, as determined by those on the inside of this case.
All the while held captive by those on the outside.
The Kansas City Star
816-234-4869
Sam McDowell is a columnist for The Star who has covered Kansas City sports for more than a decade. He has won national awards for columns, features and enterprise work. The Headliner Awards named him the 2024 national sports columnist of the year.