Former New York Jets and Buffalo Bills head coach Rex Ryan was arrested in Nashville on Wednesday morning, November 11, after he turned himself in to the Metropolitan Nashville Police Department on six outstanding misdemeanor warrants, police said. Ryan, 63, now an ESPN analyst, is accused of striking two pedestrians with his pickup truck on Broadway, the city's famous downtown entertainment strip, just before midnight on November 5, and then driving away.
According to the police account carried by NBC Sports, the New York Post and WSMV, the two pedestrians were crossing Broadway from 4th Avenue with a walk signal when Ryan's pickup truck turned right from 4th Avenue, ran over both victims' feet and made contact with one person's leg. Police described the injuries as minor.
Source: NBC Sports / Metropolitan Nashville Police Department
The pedestrians told police the truck kept going, but stopped at a red light at Broadway and Representative John Lewis Way, where they caught up with it and waved down the driver. They said he stepped out of the truck, argued with them, got back in and drove away. The two photographed the driver and the truck's license plate, and police said the vehicle is registered to Ryan, which led to the warrants.
Six misdemeanor counts and a $6,000 bond
Ryan faces two counts of leaving the scene of an accident, two counts of failure to give information or render aid, and two counts of failure to obey a traffic control signal. A judicial commissioner set his bond at $6,000, and jail records show he was released early on Wednesday morning, shortly after turning himself in. The charges are allegations: Ryan has not been convicted of anything, and neither Ryan nor his representatives had issued a statement in the reports published on Wednesday.
Ryan is one of the most recognisable coaching personalities in American football. He was head coach of the New York Jets and then the Buffalo Bills, and has worked as an ESPN NFL analyst since 2017. Reports say he has lived in the Nashville area since around 2014, and he was in the city last week for podcast and media appearances when the alleged incident happened.
The same corner where a pedestrian was killed earlier this year
The intersection of 4th Avenue and Broadway is already at the centre of a Nashville road-safety debate. Earlier this year, a crash at the same crossing killed one pedestrian and hospitalised several others after an 87-year-old driver, Thomas Cahill of Kentucky, ran a red light and struck people in the crosswalk, according to local reporting. Cahill has been charged with four misdemeanors, including failure to yield causing death and three counts of failure to yield resulting in serious injury.
"The Tennessee Department of Transportation (TDOT) has been in active discussions with Metro Nashville and the Tennessee Department of Safety & Homeland Security to evaluate the potential installation of bollards on Broadway in downtown Nashville, also known as State Route 1." — TDOT statement reported by Whiskey Riff
Because Broadway is a state-owned roadway — State Route 1 — the city cannot simply close it to traffic or make it a pedestrian-only entertainment district on its own. Any bollards, barriers or closure plan needs Metro Nashville and TDOT to act together, and local reporting says that conversation has intensified since the fatal crash earlier this year. Wednesday's arrest, involving one of the most famous names in US sports media, has put the corner back in the headlines.
What happens next
Ryan is set to appear in court on December 18, when the six misdemeanor counts will move forward. For Punjabi and other diaspora readers who drive for a living — Nashville sits at the junction of the I-40, I-65 and I-24 freight corridors — the case is also a reminder of how quickly a low-speed downtown turn can become a criminal case when a driver leaves the scene: three of the legal categories Ryan faces exist precisely because police say the truck did not stay and its driver did not exchange information or offer aid.