MIAMI BEACH, Fla. – Police arrested former NFL linebacker Junior Galette on South Beach Thursday night on a charge of having no valid driver’s license after he ignored an officer’s attempt to “lecture” him on his use of a motor scooter on Ocean Drive, according to a police report.
Galette, 34, played in the NFL from 2010 to 2017, suiting up for the New Orleans Saints and the franchise now known as the Washington Commanders.
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According to an arrest report obtained by Local 10 News, a Miami Beach police officer responding to an unrelated call on Ocean Drive noticed Galette, riding a yellow motor scooter southbound, making an illegal left turn through plastic traffic posts that force traffic onto Fifth Street.
The officer then saw Galette ride the scooter into the bicycle-only lane and then make a U-turn in the middle of the intersection to head back and speak to a group of women that were crossing the street.
The officer continued to the call after seeing Galette stopping to speak to the women, the report states.
After seeing Galette riding the scooter again, the officer wrote that he waited until Galette got closer and then “(waved) him down and advised him to stop, simply so I could lecture him.”
The officer wrote that Galette looked at him and kept on going.
That’s when the officer got back in his squad car and followed Galette, who turned around, looked at the cruiser and made a left turn into an alleyway, stopping adjacent to a building “in order to conceal himself from me,” he wrote.
After asking Galette for his driver’s license, the officer wrote that the former NFL player instead gave him a Louisiana ID card and a records check revealed that he did not have a valid license in either Louisiana or Florida.
Police took Galette to the Turner Guilford Knight Correctional Center.