Isaiah Buggs Damon Tarver/Cal Sport Media/Newscom/MEGA
Kansas City Chiefs defensive lineman Isaiah Buggs is facing two misdemeanor charges.
The Tuscaloosa Police Department issued warrants against Buggs, 27, on charges of cruelty to dogs in the second degree, according to court documents obtained by ESPN on Wednesday, May 29. The Alabama county’s police department responded following a report that two dogs, that appeared malnourished and neglected, were left on a house’s porch overnight. The allegedly abandoned residence was being rented by Buggs.
The Tuscaloosa Patch was first to report the news, revealing that the incident went down in late March.
ESPN reported on Wednesday that responding officers seized a pit bull — which was eventually euthanized — and rottweiler on the screened-in porch where the animals allegedly didn’t have any access to food or water. It was also reported that Buggs had recently moved from the home.
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“Under no circumstance does Mr. Buggs condone the mistreatment of any animal,” the football player’s agent, Trey Robinson, said in a statement obtained by ESPN. “The dogs at issue did not belong to him and he was unaware they remained at the property in question.”
Robinson alleged that these recent allegations are connected to an ongoing battle with the City of Tuscaloosa related to the hookah lounge that Buggs owns in the city. (Buggs has not spoken publicly about the ongoing situation.)
“Furthermore, we believe the City of Tuscaloosa’s decision to file the charges today is part of a concerted effort by the City of Tuscaloosa and its Police Department to besmirch Mr. Buggs’ name and reputation as part of an on-going subversive campaign to force the close of his local business Kings Hookah Lounge,” Robinson’s statement continued, claiming that Buggs had been arrested “on two separate occasions in the past two months, but each time no public record was made of these arrests.”
Robinson further claimed that the city of Tuscaloosa used the “threat of pursuing and publicizing” these allegations as “leverage” against Buggs “by offering to drop and not pursue them in exchange for his voluntary surrender of his business license.”
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The Buggs-owned Kings Hookah Lounge had its grand opening in February 2021, and has been cited for “overcrowding, operating without a business license and failing to pay city sales tax,” per the Patch report.
Robinson’s statement on Wednesday also alleged that Buggs has “serious concerns” about the Tuscaloosa police’s “motivation for deciding to target his business,” something that the athlete “plans to bring to light as part of his defense of the allegations and charges filed against him and his reputation and business.”
Buggs, who played for the University of Alabama, has been on the Chiefs since early 2024. He was drafted by the Steelers in the sixth round of the 2019 draft.