Troubled NFL defensive lineman Ray McDonald was arrested for the second time in three days on Wednesday for violating a restraining order by being at a residence in Santa Clara, Calif.
According to police reports, the restraining order was issued as a direct result of his arrest on Monday, in which the 30-year-old football player was accused of an early morning assault on a woman — whose identity had not been released — while she was holding a baby.
McDonald’s attorney Steve DeFilippis told the San Jose Mercury News that neither he nor his client had been notified of the restraining order and that they had gone to the residence to take photographs for evidence.
After the incident on Monday, the Chicago Bears released McDonald, whom they signed in March. The case has touched off a debate about whether NFL teams should be held accountable for signing players with checkered histories. In a pair of incidents while he was a member of the San Francisco 49ers, McDonald was accused of felony domestic assault and rape.
When asked at a press conference Wednesday if the Bears had done sufficient background research before signing McDonald, team chairman George McCaskey said, “I ask myself that question a lot. What more could I have done? Is there somebody else that we could have consulted with? Should I have taken more time with that decision? I don’t know, we thought we had a good structure, a good support system and we thought we had the safeguards in place in case something like this happened.”
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