Former 49ers running back Joe Williams was arrested Wednesday in West Hollywood after deputies say he tried to run from them during a foot chase.
The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department said the 33-year-old was first stopped near La Brea and Fountain Avenues around 4 p.m. for possible speeding. Deputies gave him a verbal warning and let him go. Not long after that, they learned Williams had an outstanding felony warrant for receiving stolen property.
When deputies stopped him a second time, Williams allegedly got out of his car and took off instead of complying. The chase ended on Formosa Avenue near Romaine Street, where deputies caught him and placed him under arrest.
Williams was booked on suspicion of receiving stolen property, resisting or obstructing an officer, vandalism, trespassing, and violating the terms of his probation or supervised release. He was being held on $50,000 bail and is due in court Monday, November 2.
The probation violation points to prior trouble with the legal system after football, though few details about his post-NFL life have been made public.
Williams’ football story was unusual long before this arrest. He transferred to Utah in 2015 after beginning his college career elsewhere, then retired early in the 2016 season. Injuries in the Utes’ backfield brought him back weeks later, and he returned with a string of big performances that put him back on NFL teams’ radar.
In all, he played 19 games over two seasons in Salt Lake City, and his top-end speed made him one of the more debated running backs in the 2017 draft class.
That debate played out in one of the more memorable draft-room moments of the Kyle Shanahan and John Lynch era. Lynch was wary of Williams because he had quit midseason, while Shanahan saw a fit for his outside-zone offense and kept pushing for him.
The night before the pick, Shanahan said, “I will be contemplating Joe Williams all night.” San Francisco eventually took him in the fourth round as part of the franchise’s first draft class under the new regime.
The move never paid off. Williams injured his ankle and spent his entire rookie season on injured reserve. The 49ers waived him on August 31, 2018, and he never appeared in a regular-season game for San Francisco or any other NFL team.
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