This morning you may have followed some of my tweets defending the allegation that Mike Whitehead was wanted by the police for sexual assault. I didn’t really defend him, I just sought to locate the same sources that other MMA sites used and I couldn’t find any. Maybe it’s best to get you guys up to date with the cliff notes of the entire ordeal before I continue…
Earlier today, Adam Hill from the Las Vegas Review-Journal tweeted that Mike Whitehead was wanted by Las Vegas police for ‘sexual assault’ and ‘drug charges’. The drug charges turned out to be true. Dude had a 50-plant marijuana growing operation hosted entirely inside his Las Vegas residence. Unfortunately, in the state of Nevada, that’s considered a felony and is punishable by 1-6 years in prison and a fine of up to $20,000. If Mike Whitehead packed up his green house and moved 57 minutes west to the sunny state of California and obtained a medical marijuana card, that same offense wouldn’t be considered an offense at all. In fact, according to his medical marijuana license, he would be encouraged to grow his own stash. We’re not even going to tackle the reformation of marijuana laws here, I’m sure Joe Rogan can do a much better job than I can ever attempt.
The reason why this article even exists is to inform that same rabid, blood-thirty media who initially reported that the LVPD issued a warrant for Whitehead’s arrest for a sexual assault charge is wrong. They’re all wrong. Even the sites who allegedly called KLAS 8 to ‘verify their report’, they’re wrong. MMAJunkie talked to Barbara Morgan, a public information officer for the Las Vegas Police Department and here’s what she said regarding Mike Whitehead:
“I want to make it perfectly clear (that) there is no arrest warrant out for him“
“He’s not on the run; he’s not hiding. I’m sure he’ll probably talk to our detectives. We just need to get his side of the story.”
Now maybe it’s just me, but do you guys see the difference between being ‘Wanted by Las Vegas police on sexual assault and drug charges’ (a direct headline from a popular MMA site) to ‘There is no arrest warrant out for him’. Once again, I’m not calling out any MMA sites but accusing a dude of sexual assault without a verifiable source is a huge screw-up. No, actually that probably qualifies as a monumental screw-up. Imagine you’re Mike Whitehead. You wake up Tuesday morning and find that every news source is reporting that you’ve been accused of sexual assault. For the sake of this example, let’s say that you’ve been exonerated of any suspicion of sexual assault. In fact, you find out that the initial accusation was based on some guy’s tweet (twat). Now with just that one false tweet, every event you go to, every public signing you attend and every party you show up to, you won’t be known as that guy who defeated Kevin Randleman, Mark Kerr, Krzysztof Soszynski, Vernon White and Ben Rothwell. You will be known as that pervert who ‘had a warrant for his arrest for sexual assault’ and guess what folks…that sticks with you for the rest of your life.
I don’t know Mike Whitehead, I don’t even know what camp he trains out of. But I do know that all of those MMA sites who reported that Mike Whitehead has a warrant out for his arrest because of sexual assault will not bother to apologize or publish a retraction article because they either don’t give a [expletive] or are too reckless/careless to correct their errors. The only thing that’s left to say is I have to give out huge props to MMAJunkie for actually talking to the police before publishing an erroneous article that claims that Mike Whitehead is ‘wanted by the LVPD for sexual assault’.
