More trouble for Everson Griffen: In jail, accused of probation violations from DUI conviction

A handful of days after former Minnesota Vikings star Everson Griffen was kicked off a Delta flight for being “unruly,” he was jailed Saturday night on allegations that he violated terms of his probation stemming from a drunken driving conviction in 2024.

A warrant was issued late Saturday afternoon for the 37-year-old Griffen’s arrest, according to court records.

The warrant alleged that Griffen violated court orders when he did not submit to random drug testing, failed to abstain from drugs or alcohol and did not follow other unspecified terms of his probation, the court filing read.

Griffen was booked in the Hennepin County jail Saturday night and remains there ahead of a court appearance Monday afternoon. The Minnesota Star Tribune has reached out to Griffen’s attorney for comment about his arrest.

The alleged probationary violations are in connection to Griffen’s sentence in November for driving while drunk in May 2024 on a Minneapolis interstate. Judge Gina Brandt set aside a year in the workhouse for Griffen, imposed a 60-day sentence and put him on supervisory probation for four years.

On Wednesday, Griffen allegedly created a scene during a Delta flight from Chicago to the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.

Delta Air Lines spokesperson Berj Alexanian told the Minnesota Star Tribune that pilots went back to O’Hare International Airport “to have an unruly passenger removed.”

Griffen released a statement to the Star Tribune that said his behavior “was not unruly at all. Why would they let me go?”

In July 2023, Griffen was stopped in Chanhassen and accused of driving 60 mph in a 40 mph zone. His blood-alcohol content was 0.09%. Griffen pleaded guilty to a reduced careless driving charge in February 2024 and was placed on a year’s probation.

In the months following that allegation, Griffen crashed his car into a fence and gazebo in Mound on Oct. 28, 2023. He was convicted of failure to drive with due care, a petty misdemeanor.

On Dec. 7, 2023, in Shakopee, police stopped Griffen for driving 55 mph in a 30 mph zone. He was convicted of a petty misdemeanor in that case as well.

In December 2021, following multiple troubling incidents, Griffen announced on social media that he had been living with bipolar disorder.

Griffen called 911 shortly after 3 a.m. from his Minnetrista home on Nov. 24, 2021, saying someone was with him, and he needed help. He also told the dispatcher that he fired one round from a gun, but no one was wounded, police said. They added that no intruder was found.

The same day, Griffen had posted, then deleted, a video on Instagram saying people were trying to kill him as he held a gun in his hand. He was alone inside the house, with police outside, until he emerged and agreed to be taken for treatment.

He spent four weeks undergoing mental health treatment in 2018 after two incidents that September — one at the Hotel Ivy in downtown Minneapolis, the other at his home — that prompted police involvement. He later revealed he lived in a sober house for the remainder of the 2018 season.

Griffen returned to the Vikings in 2019 and played in 17 of the Vikings’ 18 regular-season and postseason games. He spent 2020 with Dallas and Detroit before the Vikings brought him back for the 2021 season in a one-year deal that capped his career.