Kirk Snyder ordered back to jail after cutting off his electronic ankle bracelet

Yesterday, I tweeted that Kirk Snyder - who had been rumoured as a possible returnee to the Chinese Basketball Association this season - had been denied entry to the league, as officials saw him as undesirable what with his whole burglary/vicious assault/incarceration/suicide watch/forcefeeding medication story thing. It surprised me that there was even a possibility of Snyder's return. The last I heard, he had been released from the mental ward and found competent to stand trial, but no news that he had been released from jail.

However, today, we found out that he HAD been released from jail, but only while wearing an electronic tagging device. And we know this because he was just sent back to jail for cutting it off.

The question of you would do that is an obvious and entirely valid one, yet considering that we're talking about a man who had to be force fed, savagely beat a man to a pulp in full view of his wife, and who was recently deemed by the courts to be mentally incompetent, then nothing can be a surprise any more. The hope that Kirk Snyder had merely had a mini-drug-induced-freakout - which would be incredibly little solace, but which was a better thing to hope for that this - is now completely dead. Kirk Snyder would appear to be oh so very irrational right now, and it's not fun to think about.

So, because it's more fun to do, let's instead remember Kirk Snyder the basketball player. Here he is with a much underrated dunk over Von Wafer (here pictured as a Laker; no one seems to remember that he used to be a Laker, but it happened.)

They were good times. Simpler times. Happy times. But they ain't coming back.

Kirk Snyder is mentally incompetent

San Francisco Chronicle: The Kirk Snyder story gets just a little bit weirder, as Snyder is found to be unfit for trial, and apparently refuses to eat.

A judge has found former NBA player and Nevada Wolf Pack star Kirk Snyder not competent to stand trial and ordered that he be force-fed.

Warren County Common Pleas Judge Neal Bronson made the ruling Thursday. He says Snyder has rejected all medications and food and has been hospitalized twice.

Per Local12.com, Snyder has now been sectioned for a year.

Dude. Strange times.

When the story of Snyder's violent outburst initially broke, I had assumed - naturally, if a bit libellously - that Snyder was just a bit powdered up one night, having a crappy evening, and decided to enact revenge on the man whose dog pissed on his lawn the previous morning. Something along those lines, at least. Despite the savage and random nature of the beating, I would have rather believed that it was one bad night of coke-fuelled angst that did not necessarily indicate a pattern of violence and instability, and that maybe Kirk's real issue was just a minor substance problem that could be (relatively) easily sorted.

Unfortunately not. It would appear that Kirk Snyder really has gone a bit crazy. And that's not cool.

A search for any kind of history for Snyder turns up nothing. Snyder may have had a spat with his coach at Nevada, and he suffered from failing grades for a time, but there was nothing there to suggest that he was a future candidate for suicide watch. Nor did anything happen (publicly, at least) in his NBA career that made us wonder if Snyder would one day go on to refuse food and be confined to a psychiatric hospital for a year. And while playing in China last year, scoring big and rebuilding his resume, at no point did we think "this has all the makings of a man who's going to break into his neighbour's house and savagely beat him in full view of his wife". Just didn't pick it.



Also, while we're updating the Kirk Snyder story, here's a video of Corie Blount being sent to prison. Cheech joke and all. You have to put up with a lengthy and somewhat pointless speech from a judge who is clearly revelling in having multiple cameras filming him doing a day's work, but it's worth watching if only for the stunning bowtie on offer from Blount's defense attorney. There's a leniency plea if ever I've seen one. Had it been a spinner, Blount might have been acquitted.