{"id":984702,"date":"2026-08-27T15:45:17","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T15:45:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/984702\/"},"modified":"2026-08-27T15:45:17","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T15:45:17","slug":"former-minnesota-viking-everson-griffen-arrested-for-refusing-to-leave-i-394-in-minneapolis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/984702\/","title":{"rendered":"Former Minnesota Viking Everson Griffen arrested for refusing to leave I-394 in Minneapolis"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/getty-giffen.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"764\" height=\"432\" loading=\"eager\" fetchpriority=\"high\" data-v-653d32e2=\"\"\/> article <\/p>\n<p data-v-653d32e2=\"\">\u00a0Everson Griffen #97 of the Minnesota Vikings warms up prior to the game against the Los Angeles Chargers at SoFi Stadium on November 14, 2021 in Inglewood, California. (Photo by Katelyn Mulcahy\/Getty Images) (Getty Images)<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">MINNEAPOLIS (FOX 9) &#8211; Former <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox9.com\/tag\/nfl\/vikings\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">Minnesota Vikings<\/a> defensive end Everson Griffen was arrested Wednesday morning after he was walking on Interstate 394 in Minneapolis and refused to leave.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>   Everson Griffen arrested\u00a0 <\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KMSP\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">What we know:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">According to the Minnesota State Patrol, shortly before 3 a.m., state troopers located a man, later identified as 38-year-old Griffen, walking on the left-hand shoulder of westbound I-394.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">A trooper directed Griffen to leave the roadway, but he refused to comply, a State Patrol spokesperson said.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Troopers deployed a Taser and eventually took Griffen into custody.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Medics were called to the scene to assess Griffen for any injuries. After he was cleared, he was transported and booked into the Hennepin County Jail for failure to obey a lawful order.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KMSP\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">Big picture view:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">In recent years, Griffen has been open about his mental health struggles. Six weeks ago, he <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DaonBVBM1Nz\/?hl=en\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\">shared on social media<\/a> about getting back on track.<\/p>\n<p original-article-post=\"\" origination_station=\"KMSP\" data-v-ec26887a=\"\" data-v-94395e58=\"\">The backstory:<\/p>\n<p data-v-94395e58=\"\">Griffen played in the NFL for 12 seasons between 2010 and 2021, spending 11 of those seasons in Minnesota. At his peak, he was one of the league&#8217;s top defensive ends, accruing 85.5 sacks over his career, including three seasons with double-digit sack totals.<\/p>\n<p class=\"group-source-paragraph\" data-v-4fbf7207=\"\">The Source: This story uses information gathered from the Minnesota State Patrol, Hennepin County Jail roster and Hennepin County court.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>    <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox9.com\/tag\/crime-publicsafety\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Crime and Public Safety<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.fox9.com\/tag\/us\/mn\/hennepin-county\/minneapolis\" class=\"tags-tag\" data-v-94395e58=\"\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Minneapolis<\/a> <script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"article \u00a0Everson Griffen #97 of the Minnesota Vikings warms up prior to the game against the Los Angeles&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":984703,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2073],"tags":[11242,7,32764,18175,233,259,2529,12933,88,6,800,234],"class_list":["post-984702","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-minnesota-vikings","tag-crime-publicsafety","tag-football","tag-hennepin-county","tag-minneapolis","tag-minnesota","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-minnesotavikings","tag-mn","tag-news","tag-nfl","tag-us","tag-vikings"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/117168251135187201","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984702","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=984702"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/984702\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/984703"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=984702"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=984702"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=984702"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}