Chiefs’ Isaiah Buggs arrested, released in animal cruelty case

Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Isaiah Buggs turned himself in to the Tuscaloosa County Jail on Thursday after he allegedly mistreated two dogs.

A Tuscaloosa Police Department spokesperson confirmed that Buggs surrendered at the jail Thursday, a day after two misdemeanor warrants were filed against him.

Buggs was booked and released on $600 bond and faces a court hearing on June 13. He refused a reporter’s question while leaving the jail and getting into a truck.

According to court documents, the Tuscaloosa Police Department received a report that two dogs were being left on the back porch of a home being rented by Buggs. Officers and animal control found a gray and white pit bull and a black rottweiler on a screened-in back porch with no access to food or water.

Both dogs appeared malnourished and neglected, and the residence appeared to be abandoned. Witnesses told police that Buggs had recently moved from the house. Both dogs were seized, and the pit bull eventually was euthanized.

Buggs’ agent, Trey Robinson, on Wednesday denied the charges and alleged his client is a victim of an ongoing “subversive campaign” to force the closure of the hookah lounge he owns in Tuscaloosa.

“Under no circumstance does Mr. Buggs condone the mistreatment of any animal,” Robinson said in a statement. “The dogs at issue did not belong to him, and he was unaware they remained at the property in question.”

Robinson said in his statement that Buggs was arrested at his hookah lounge on misdemeanor charges “on two separate occasions in the past two months, but each time no public record was made of these arrests.” Robinson added that the city was using the allegations against Buggs as “leverage” to get him to surrender his business license.

A Chiefs spokesman said the team was aware of the situation, but declined to comment.

Buggs, 27, played three seasons with the Pittsburgh Steelers and two with the Detroit Lions before joining the Chiefs in January as a practice squad player. The Chiefs re-signed Buggs to a futures contract in February.

Information from ESPN’s Adam Teicher and The Associated Press was used in this report.