Sunday morning brought forth yet another arrest in the Georgia football program. This time it was wide receiver Zachariah Branch who was arrested early Sunday morning on two misdemeanor charges.
Like with any arrest , specific details were not initially released to the public, so it was hard to know what to feel about this situation. But that changed Sunday afternoon and the details show that Branch really didn't do anything wrong and the Athens Police Department blew this situation way out of proportion.
“A male, later identified as Zachariah Branch, continued to stand on the sidewalk without making an attempt to move,” said Branch’s police report via x.com. “I continued to give Zachariah Branch verbal commands to move from blocking the sidewalk and advised that if he did not, he would receive a citation for blocking the sidewalk. Zachariah Branch smirked, then stepped backwards and to the right, then remained standing upon the public sidewalk, so as to obstruct, hinder, and impede free passage upon the sidewalk as well as impede free ingress/egress to or from the adjacent places of business. Due to those actions and Zachariah Branch’s failure to comply with multiple verbal lawful commands, he was placed under arrest for misdemeanor Obstruction of LEO and received a citation for Obstructing Public Sidewalks.”
Zachariah Branch arrest details are as ridiculous as they can get
Did Branch do something wrong? Technically yes, but was it worth getting arrested? Probably not.
Sure Branch could've followed all the instructions given to him by the police officer, but at some point common sense needs to be used. An arrest was not necessary because Branch wasn't harming or impacting anyone at all.
Georgia fans were rightfully furious after these details came out. The Athens Police Department continues to overreact to situations that lead to unnecessary arrests. Everyone outside of Georgia doesn't understand this, so all they see is Bulldogs being arrested more than any other program. Georgia doesn't deserve this bad reputation, but unfortunately it likely will never end if the Athens Police Department continues to act in this way.
The good news for Branch is that this will not impact his NFL Draft stock. The Draft begins later this week so an arrest could've really put him in a bad spot, but no NFL organization will be turned off from him after seeing these ridiculous details come out.
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