told WPLG<\/a> that officers had responded to a dispute between two people at police headquarters and Pearce had fled, later crashing his vehicle. Jackson was the other person involved in the dispute, Lopez told the outlet.<\/p>\n\u201cWe are aware of an incident involving James Pearce Jr. in Miami,” the Falcons said in a statement provided to The Associated Press. “We are in the process of gathering more information and will not have any further comment on an open legal matter at this time.\u201d<\/p>\n
Pearce, an edge rusher from Tennessee, was the No. 26 overall pick in the 2025 NFL draft as the Falcons emphasized the pass rush. Pearce had 10 1\/2 sacks and his 45 quarterback pressures set a team record for a rookie. Pearce had 26 tackles and 16 quarterback hits. He forced a fumble and recovered a fumble while playing in all 17 games.<\/p>\n
Jackson was the No. 4 overall pick in the 2024 WNBA draft and averaged 14.7 points in 38 games, including 37 starts, in the 2025 season. Jackson played for Tennessee and Mississippi State.<\/p>\n
The Associated Press contributed to this story.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MIAMI-DADE COUNTY, FL \u2014 The Atlanta Falcons\u2019 James Pearce Jr. faces several charges after he fled officers and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":462557,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[629],"tags":[49,48,82,630],"class_list":["post-463206","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wnba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-sports","tag-wnba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463206"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463206\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/462557"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463206"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}