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Mark Schlabach
Georgia coach Kirby Smart dismissed backup offensive lineman Nyier Daniels on Monday, a day after his arrest after allegedly driving more than 150 mph while attempting to flee police in Commerce, Georgia.
Daniels, from Newark, New Jersey, faces more than a dozen criminal charges and was being held Monday on $21,000 bond in the Jackson County Jail in Jefferson, Georgia.
Daniels faces two felony counts of second-degree cruelty to children and two felony counts of fleeing or attempting to elude a police officer, according to a police incident report obtained by ESPN.
According to the report, Daniels fled police with two of his younger siblings in the car.
He faces 10 additional traffic-related misdemeanors, including reckless driving and driving at maximum limits.
«[I] have not had a chance to talk to him or his family, but obviously he will no longer be with us,» Smart told reporters during a news conference Monday.
Daniels’ mother, Brandi Canada-Green, was also charged in the incident, according to Commerce Police Chief Jeff Drossman.
According to Drossman, a police officer had stopped a Nissan Rogue that Canada-Green was driving for running a stop sign. A BMW M5 being driven by Daniels passed the officer going more than 100 mph in a 25 mph speed zone, the police report said.
The officer left Canada-Green’s car and pursued the BMW being driven by Daniels.
«At this time, the initial car that the officer tried to stop entered the roadway in front of the Commerce Police Department supervisor and was blocking the supervisor from passing to assist the officer in the chase,» Drossman said in an emailed statement. «The supervisor attempted to stop the initial car and she refused to pull over.»
Drossman said Canada-Green’s car reached speeds of more than 100 mph while she tried to flee from police.
The officer lost sight of Daniels’ BMW, which the report said was traveling at speeds of more than 150 mph on U.S. Interstate 85, and the pursuit stopped. At one point during the chase, according to the report, Canada-Green called her daughter in the BMW and «told her children to stop running from the police and ‘bring their asses back to Commerce.'»
Officers pulled over on the side of I-85 and waited for Canada-Green’s car to pass. She was stopped and arrested.
Canada-Green was charged with one felony count of attempting to elude a police officer and five misdemeanors, including willful obstruction of law enforcement officers and reckless driving.
A UGA athletics department official later brought Daniels back to Commerce, where he turned himself into police. The officer said he «immediately smelled the odor of marijuana emitting from the vehicle» when Daniels stepped out of the BMW.
When the officer asked Daniels why he fled, he said, «He did not want his mother to get a ticket.»
When the officer informed Daniels that he and his mother were both going to jail instead, Daniels said, «It has been worse.»
The officer tried to explain the severity of the situation and what might have happened to Daniels and his younger siblings while traveling at those speeds, and Daniels allegedly said, «Y’all can’t drive.»
«Nyier seemed to not care about the situation that he had put himself in or the fact that he endangered the lives of his two younger siblings,» the officer wrote in the report.
A former top recruit at Bergen Catholic High in Oradell, New Jersey, Daniels played as a reserve in Georgia’s wins against Marshall, FCS program Austin Peay and Charlotte this season.
