Former NFL Player Jonathan Martin Charged for Criminal Threats

Former NFL player Jonathan Martin has officially been charged with five crimes after posting a photo of a shotgun to social media and tagging his former high school and multiple former teammates.

The Blast reports Martin was charged by the L.A. County District Attorney of four counts of criminal threats and one count of carrying a loaded firearm. Following his post, Martin was detained by police and had a shotgun, a second gun, a large knife and an ax in his possession at the time.

Following Martin’s detainment, his former high school, Harvard-Westlake, filed a restraining order to prevent Martin from being on school grounds. The Workplace Violence Protection listed school president Rick Commons as Martin’s potential target, according to The Blast.

Martin’s post featured a shotgun on a bed surrounded by multiple rounds of bullets, with a caption reading, “When you’re a bully victim & a coward, your options are suicide, or revenge.”

Police detained Martin, citing that he was a potential “security risk” for people at the high school, but was later released for being “no credible threat.” The South Florida Sun Sentinel reported he was out of policy custody by Feb. 26.

After playing offensive tackle at Stanford University, Martin was drafted in the second round by the Miami Dolphins in the 2012 NFL Draft. By 2015, he had already moved from the Dolphins to the San Francisco 49ers to the Carolina Panthers, and announced his retirement in July 2015 after learning he’d need back surgery that would keep him out of action for the entire 2015-16 NFL season.

Of the people tagged in the photo, two were Martin’s former Dolphins teammate in Mike Pouncy and Richie Incognito. They were two of the three players cited by an NFL independent report in 2013 of creating a hostile work environment for Martin, causing him to leave the team midway through the 2013 season.

The Los Angeles Times reported that Martin wrote a series of alarming posts on Facebook in the weeks following his retirement announcement, where he vented about his struggles with being a bully victim and a minority at his high school.

“You learn to tone down your size & blackness by becoming shy, introverted, friendly, so you won’t scare the little rich white kids or their parents,” one post read. “Neither black nor white people accept you because they don’t understand you. It takes away from your self-confidence, your self-worth, your sanity.”