Donovan McNabb may not be getting any luckier in NFC Championship Games, but at least he’s getting luckier with the law. After his Arizona house was vandalized by lawn-burners just before the NFC title tilt, there was every indication that it would take forever for the perpetrators to be brought to justice. Evidently that hard-style, desert justice kicked in, though, because police already have arrested two men who they claim were responsible for the vandalism. Here’s the surprise: They’re two 30-somethings.
Yup, according to FANHOUSE, McNabb was the victim of two gentlemen — not teens — who may or may not have been very liquored up. Thirty-seven-year-old Rex Perkins, a Chandler, Ariz., native, was the criminal dumb enough to leave some form of identification behind, and his co-worker, 28-year-old Ryan Hanlon, quickly caved, as well. The real kick in the teeth for McNabb? The dynamic duo is only getting charged with misdemeanors in the case. Misdemeanors. Strangely, the lax punishment seems to match the lax attitude of the criminals; Perkins’ identification left? A return addressed envelope with his name on it.
That the criminals weren’t teenagers is a shock, but there’s still a conspiracy theory surrounding the case: How did it go unreported for days before the game?
That question is precisely what McNabb and a number of other officials want answered. Not only did the incident go unreported, but it took until after the game — incidentally, just before McNabb will be heading back out to the offseason home in the coming weeks — for anything to move on it. And as soon as they start looking, police catch two duncey criminals?
McNabb hasn’t made any statements alleging frustration with the sheriffs office or other concerns, but you’d have to imagine he has some. Then again, maybe he knows what we only found out on Sunday. Maybe these guys could still get stuck wearing pink underwear, living in a tent and working on a chain gang. For lawn burning, that’d be a pretty big shot to the arm, for sure.
*UPDATE*: The EAST VALLEY TRIBUNE shows us Rex & Ryan’s mugshots.







11:28 am on January 21st, 2009
Sheriff Joe Arpaio does it again!
11:31 am on January 21st, 2009
Lawn grass is such a scarce commodity in Arizona. You'd think these guys would get more severe punishment for wasting a valuable resource like that.
12:24 pm on January 21st, 2009
"That the criminals weren’t teenagers is a shock"
No. Not even a little bit.
Unless that was sarcasm, in which case, carry on.
1:27 pm on January 21st, 2009
Um … in whose dictionary do a 37-year-old and a 28-year-old qualify as "two 30-somethings"? I could forgive the error more readily had part of your story's angle not been to weirdly focus on the age of the perps. What's up with that, anyway? It's not like it's unusual in the annals of criminal activity for someone over 20 to have been arrested.
1:45 pm on January 21st, 2009
The two didn't even think to bring along any marshmallows for their cookout? Now that's stupid.
10:01 pm on January 21st, 2009
If this was the other way around - Eagles fans burning messages into Kurt Warner's lawn - ESPN would be having a field day, bringing up all the other instances of unruly Philly fan behavior. And you can be sure SportsCenter would have devoted a Top Ten to booing Santa Claus, cheering a hurt Michael Irvin, etc.
2:17 pm on January 23rd, 2009
I agree with J-Roll Band. This would have been all over the news if it was the other way around. The fact that is was brought up was because the nard who wrote this column used the race card of "whites" burning a "black man's" lawn. Of which I was the first to mention in that it was a chemical burn NOT an on fire burn.