During June 2014 Arrest, Hope Solo Told Officer Her Necklace Cost More than His Yearly Salary
Yesterday, we covered the thorough look at Hope Solo’s domestic violence case conducted by Mark Fainaru-Wada of ESPN’s Outside the Lines. While one of the most salient aspects of the piece was U.S. Soccer’s seemingly willful blinders towards the full context of the situation, there were other details that warrant mentioning.
For one, the goalie was far from congenial with her arresting officers:
The police were trying to book her into jail, but Solo was so combative that she had to be forced to the ground, prompting her to yell at one officer, “You’re such a b—-. You’re scared of me because you know that if the handcuffs were off, I’d kick your ass.”
Solo, perhaps the best women’s soccer goalie in the world, had repeatedly hurled insults at the officers processing her arrest, suggesting that two jailers were having sex and calling another officer a “14-year-old boy.” When asked to remove a necklace, an apparently drunk Solo told the officer that the piece of jewelry was worth more than he made in a year.
In a contradiction to Solo’s claim that she never acted aggressively, Outside the Lines published photos collected from the police report of cuts and bruises on the faces and bodies of Obert and her son. For example, this was a cut on her son’s ear:
Glock’s piece covers the good and bad with Solo. It explores her upbringing — she was conceived during a conjugal visit; her father was a lifelong con man and her mother an alcoholic (however, relationships with both parents were ultimately salvaged) — as well as her ostracism from her 2007 World Cup teammates for publicly questioning coaches for benching her (she remains polarizing with teammates), her apparently great treatment of fans and kids, and her marriage with Jerramy Stevens.
Again, though, it’s bizarre that something published days later under the same umbrella highlighted details that were either omitted or not discovered, and that a piece so prominent and comprehensive as Glock’s ran without some of those major facts. (ESPNW’s piece also did not address Solo’s belligerent treatment of her arresting officers.)
The coverage of Hope Solo during the Women’s World Cup is going to walk a fine line. In his weekly media column, SI’s Richard Deitsch summarized a Fox Sports 1 panel about the goalkeeper, and found the analysis of some former players, who could barely conceal their resentment about the responsibility to eschew sticking to sports, to be unsatisfactory:
While it’s certainly inconvenient for the U.S. Women’s National Team that new details on Solo’s year-old arrest emerged on the eve of their World Cup debut, it likely won’t be a story that they’ll be able to ignore.