Rolando McClain's Alleged Assault Takes Raiders' Outlaw Culture Too Far

Rolando McClain is one of the most talented players on the Oakland Raiders defense, but he’s been battling an ankle injury since October. Now, the 23-year-old linebacker has a much bigger battle ahead of him.

As reported by CBS News, McClain was arrested in his Alabama hometown on Thursday for allegedly firing a gun as part of a fight. McClain has been charged with assault, menacing, reckless endangerment and firing a gun inside city limits, though his attorney says that the Raiders’ standout denies firing the gun or being involved in the fight.

Per the police account of the incident, the victim had been fighting with another man and was trying to get in his car to leave when McClain threatened him. The linebacker allegedly held the gun to the man’s head, and when the victim begged McClain not to shoot him, McClain took the gun away and fired it next to the man’s ear instead.

The kind of thuggish behavior McClain is charged with only reinforces the worst stereotypes about professional athletes using guns to prove how tough they are. It’s also, sadly, not a huge leap to what McClain supposedly did from the way the Raiders are expected to comport themselves in general.

Oakland, perennially the most penalized team in the NFL, has long cultivated an image as a bunch of rebels who don’t have to play by the same rules as everybody else. Obviously, that image is not meant to include actual criminal behavior.

At the same time, McClain’s alleged actions could be seen as fitting on the same continuum. For all that he appears to have behaved in a threatening manner, one could imagine that McClain never had any intention of shooting anyone and only wanted to appear intimidating to the victim and (presumably) anyone else who was watching.

Even if he didn’t actually cause bodily harm, though, there’s no excuse for what McClain is charged with having done. The Raiders’ outsider image is just that—an image—and this alleged assault crosses the line by turning it into a very bleak reality.

If McClain is guilty, his actions are not any representation of what the Raiders are or should be, but merely an indication that he himself doesn’t have enough sense to know where posturing ends and criminal behavior begins.