Vikings' Peterson: ‘Truth will surface'

Adrian Peterson made his first public comments on Sunday afternoon following his arrest early Saturday morning.

Vikings running back Adrian Peterson made his first public comments Sunday afternoon following his arrest for resisting arrest early Saturday morning.

“Thank you for waiting for the facts. Truth will surface,” Peterson tweeted.

According to the Associated Press, Houston Police Department spokesman Kese Smith said Peterson was at a downtown nightclub early Saturday morning when an off-duty Houston police officer working security asked Peterson and a group of people he was with to leave because it was closed. The man, who Kese said identified himself as a police officer, left to tell other patrons to leave the club before returning to Peterson's group to again tell them to leave.

Kese said Peterson turned around and told the officer that he heard him the first time and pushed him in the shoulder, causing him to stumble. The officer told Peterson he was under arrest and to put his hands behind his back. Peterson began yelling, pulled away and "assumed an aggressive stance" so another off-duty officer came to help. Peterson continued to struggle with them both.

The account of the arrest is out of character for Peterson, who has established himself as a respected leader for the Vikings, causing some to question the accounts of the incident offered by the Houston Police Department.

Yahoo! ran a story Sunday recounting the tale of former NFL player Fred Weary, who was also charged with resisting arrest in Houston in 2006. The charges were eventually dropped for insufficient evidence, but according to Houston lawyer Stephanie Stradley, who was quoted in the Yahoo! story, Weary’s car was followed for 4-6 miles before he was stopped. The implication is that Weary was racially profiled before he was pulled over.

TMZ.com also released a grainy cell phone video on Sunday that shows Peterson being walked out of the Houston night club in handcuffs after his arrest but proves little else.

Peterson also tweeted a quote from Winston Churchill on Sunday: “A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.”

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Tim Yotter is the publisher of Viking Update. Follow Viking Update on Twitter and discuss this topic on our message boards. To become a subscriber to the Viking Update web site or magazine, click here.

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