James Stewart, Supercross Star, Gets Arrested In Florida

Pro athletes getting arrested is nothing new, but the reason AMA Supercross rider James Stewart got arrested just might be a first.

Stewart, who won the Supercross championship in 2007 and 2009, was arrested Monday and charged with impersonating an officer, according to the Orlando Sentinel.

Say what?!

According to the story, Stewart was driving his pickup truck on a Florida highway and “tried to stop another vehicle using red and blue police-type lights.”

But as the Sentinel wrote:

Unfortunately for Stewart, the vehicle contained two off-duty highway-patrol troopers, who suspected that the pickup was not an undercover police truck.

As Stewart pulled alongside the vehicle, the driver identified himself as a law officer. That’s when Stewart, who had a passenger in the pickup, sped off, the highway patrol said.

Crazy, right? The real cops then arrested Stewart at the Orlando airport. To make matters worse, the newspaper said Stewart’s passenger hid the police lights in his bag – resulting in an evidence-tampering charge.

It’s hard to even begin to grasp what Stewart was thinking. He just suffered a hard crash during last week’s Supercross race at Jacksonville, and you’d think he’d be more worried about his recovery than allegedly chasing down cars while playing cop.

Here’s a tidbit, though: A few hours before his arrest yesterday, he tweeted he was “on the way to SX track” (in Dallas) and was “feeling a lot better this week.” The incident occurred on the road to the airport.

Note to self: Next time I’m running late for a flight, using police lights to get there faster probably isn’t the best method.