Someone should get Jim Irsay a dictionary because he needs to look up the definition of the word “prejudice.”
During an interview with HBO Sports, the owner of the Indianapolis Colts talked about, among other things, his 2014 arrest for operating a vehicle while intoxicated.
Irsay claimed that the arrest was due to police prejudice because he is “a rich, white billionaire.”
When asked why he plead guilty to the charge, Irsay said: “Just to get it over with.”
“I am prejudiced against because I’m a rich, white billionaire,” Irsay said during the interview, which aired Tuesday. “If I’m just the average guy down the block, they’re not pulling me in, of course not.”
Irsay, 64, was then asked how he thought his claim of prejudice would be received by others.
“I don’t care what it sounds like,” Irsay said. “It’s the truth … I could give a damn what people think how anything sounds or sounds like. The truth is the truth, and I know the truth.”
Police in Carmel, a suburb of Indianapolis, pulled Irsay over in March 2014 after he was observed driving slowly, stopping in the roadway and failing to use a turn signal. Officers said he had trouble reciting the alphabet and failed other field sobriety tests.
In the HBO Sports interview, Irsay said that he failed those tests because of a recent hip surgery.
“The arrest was wrong,” he said. “I had just had hip surgery and had been in the car for 45 minutes. And what — they asked me to walk the line? Are you kidding me? I can barely walk at all.”
When asked to clarify if he failed the tests due to the surgery and not because he was under influence, Irsay said: “Yes, I mean I’m not saying that — it’s a fact.”
A toxicology report showed Irsay had the painkillers oxycodone and hydrocodone as well as alprazolam, which is used to treat anxiety, in his system at the time of his arrest.
The Carmel Police Department said in a statement Tuesday to the Indianapolis Star that it was “very sorry to hear” Irsay’s accusation of police prejudice.
Irsay, who is known as on of the most erratic owners in the NFL with his behaviour, has publicly discussed his battle with addiction on numerous occasions and told HBO Sports that “addiction and alcoholism is a fatal disease.”