AUSTIN, Texas -- Chicago Bears running back Cedric Benson was charged with boating while intoxicated after failing a sobriety test and resisting arrest that required officers to use pepper spray before dragging him ashore Saturday night, according to police.
If found guilty, Benson faces up to six months in jail and $2,000 for each class B misdemeanor. No court date has been set. In Texas, a BWI charge carries the same weight as a DWI.
The former Texas Longhorn, however, said he was not drunk and did not resist arrest.
"I was not intoxicated," Benson told the Chicago Sun-Times. "There was alcohol on the boat and others were enjoying themselves, but I wasn't drunk."
"They gave me a field sobriety test, told me to say my ABCs and told me to count from 1 to 4 up and down," Benson told the Chicago Tribune. "I'm thinking, I passed all the tests, did everything right. Then the officer told me we needed to go to land to take more tests. I politely asked him why we needed to go to land to take more tests when I took every test. Then he sprayed me with mace, on his boat.
"I'm not handcuffed. I'm not under arrest. I'm not threatening him. I'm not pushing him. I'm not touching him. And he sprays me right in my eye."
Benson was released from jail early Sunday on a $14,500 bond. He said in the year he has owned the boat, he has been questioned by lake police six times, according to the Tribune.
Benson was operating the boat with 15 passengers aboard when he was stopped by a Lower Colorado River Authority officer for a random safety inspection. He failed a field sobriety test on the officer's boat and was uncooperative when the officer tried to take him ashore, the authority said.
"When Benson did not pass the test, he presented himself as a threat to the officer and argued about whether or not he would be taken to land to have a follow-up field sobriety test performed on land and refused to put on a life jacket," the authority said in a statement. The officer had to use pepper spray to subdue Benson, a move the running back doesn't understand.
"Even after they pepper-sprayed me, I have no idea why they did that. I was cooperative," Benson told the Sun-Times. "I asked them several times why they did that and they didn't give me an answer."
Benson then refused to leave the officer's boat and authorities had to drag him to a car to be taken to the Travis County jail, the authority said.
Benson's account differs. He told the Tribune that he was not near his family when the police restrained him.
"Nobody saw what he did to me," Benson told the newspaper. "I started screaming for my mother to come. That's when they put me under arrest. And the officer threw a life jacket over my head.
"Once we got to land, the Travis County police grabbed me and kicked my feet from under me. So I landed on my back while I was handcuffed. They held me down and held the water hose over my face. I couldn't breathe, I'm choking, I'm begging the cops, 'Please stop. Please stop.' Then they picked me up and dragged me backward toward their car. And I'm still being polite, asking them, 'Sir, could you please allow me to walk like a man to your cop car?' They just kept dragging me on."