Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs is facing five criminal charges, including strangulation and suffocation, after police responded to a disturbance complaint involving him over the weekend.
Hobart/Lawrence (Wisconsin) Police Chief Michael Renkas said that Jacobs was arrested Tuesday and booked into Brown County Jail on charges of strangulation and suffocation, battery-domestic abuse, criminal damage to property-domestic abuse, disorderly conduct-domestic abuse and intimidation of a victim.
Renkas said police had been dispatched to a complaint involving Jacobs on Saturday at 8:37 a.m.
“This remains an active and ongoing investigation,” Renkas said in a statement. “No further information will be released at this time.”
The strangulation and suffocation charge is a felony and the other four charges are misdemeanors, according to the charge information in the Brown County Jail's online record of this case.
Jacobs' lawyers — David Chesnoff, Richard Schonfeld and Clarence Duchac — issued a joint statement on his behalf.
“Josh vehemently denies the allegations, and this matter is in the early stages of investigation with important evidence that has not yet been made public,” they said. “We ask for fairness and restraint while the judicial process takes its course.”
Jacobs is the Packers’ top returning rusher after running for 929 yards and 13 touchdowns last season. That followed a 2024 season in which he ran for 1,329 yards and 15 touchdowns while earning his third Pro Bowl selection.
He's the only player on Green Bay's roster who rushed for as many as 200 yards for the Packers last season. Emanuel Wilson, the Packers' second-leading rusher last year, signed with the Seattle Seahawks in the offseason.
The Packers began their organized team activities Tuesday. Packers coach Matt LaFleur has a scheduled availability with reporters Wednesday.
“We are aware of the matter involving Josh Jacobs,” a Packers spokesman said. “As it is an ongoing legal situation, we will withhold further comment.”
NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said that “we are aware of the report and have been in contact with the club.”
Jacobs spent his first five seasons with the Raiders. He earned All-Pro honors and had an NFL-leading 1,653 yards rushing with Las Vegas in 2022.
He has rushed for 7,803 yards and 74 touchdowns in his seven-year career. The only active players with more career touchdown runs are Baltimore's Derrick Henry (122) and Buffalo's Josh Allen (79).
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FILE - Green Bay Packers running back Josh Jacobs warms up before an NFL football game against the Denver Broncos, Dec. 14, 2025, in Denver. (AP Photo/Jack Dempsey, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Congressional Black Caucus on Tuesday called on major corporations across the U.S., including those that previously expressed support for voting rights and racial justice, to oppose redistricting efforts by Republican-led states that seek to eliminate majority-Black U.S. House districts.
In a letter sent to more than 250 companies, members of the Black Caucus urge them to condemn the redistricting efforts, which the lawmakers describe as “coordinated efforts to silence Black voices at the ballot box.” Some of the companies had cosigned their own message to Congress five years ago urging lawmakers to pass the John Lewis Voting Rights Act, a Democratic proposal to restore and update the Voting Rights Act.
That 2021 coalition, Business for Voting Rights, was backed by many of the country’s most valuable and influential companies, including Apple, Amazon, Google, Meta, Microsoft, Tesla, Salesforce, Target, PayPal, Intel and Starbucks.
Tuesday's letter is the latest effort by the Congressional Black Caucus and its allies to gather support for preventing more Republican-led states from redrawing their legislative maps in ways that would dilute Black political representation. Several states have moved to eliminate congressional districts represented by Black Democratic lawmakers after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month that severely weakened a key provision of the Voting Rights Act.
“Corporations that have profited from Black consumers, relied on Black workers, and amassed wealth in part from Black communities cannot look away while Black political power is dismantled in plain sight,” Rep. Yvette Clarke, chair of the Black Caucus, said in an interview.
Clarke described the letter as “putting corporate America on notice,” but she said the caucus was not seeking an adversarial relationship with corporations. Among those receiving Tuesday's letter were companies based overseas that have a significant presence in the U.S.
The caucus last week called for Black athletes to boycott public universities in states that are gerrymandering their congressional maps to eliminate districts held by Black lawmakers. The 59-member Congressional Black Caucus consists entirely of Democrats, including more than a third from Southern states.
Some lawmakers have said mass protests and federal legislation might be necessary to undo the efforts underway in Republican-led states. Any new federal voting rights law would almost certainly require Democrats to secure majorities in both chambers of Congress and win the presidency.
It is unclear how companies will respond to the demands. One firm, the outdoor clothing company Patagonia, said that it had received the caucus' letter and endorsed its message.
“A healthy business depends on a healthy democracy,” said Corley Kenna, an executive at Patagonia. “Patagonia stands with those who work to increase representation and defend free and fair elections.”
The Associated Press reached out for comment to dozens of companies that were sent a letter by the caucus, but did not receive a response from most firms. Microsoft declined to comment.
“Many companies that previously issued statements after the murder of George Floyd, pledged billions toward racial equity initiatives, and spoke forcefully in defense of democracy following January 6 now face a defining test of whether those commitments were rooted in principle or convenience,” the caucus' letter states.
It also represents the latest instance of the caucus expressing frustrations with corporate America. A 2024 Black Caucus report noted that lawmakers were “troubled that some corporations that made pledges in 2020 have taken several steps in the opposite direction,” such as rolling back or failing to follow through on pledges to diversify their workforces.
“We understand who the occupant in the White House is and the reality of Republicans being in charge,” Democratic Rep. Steven Horsford of Nevada said of the caucus’ message. “But what corporate America also understands is that there will be a shift at some point.”
The letter calls on companies to publicly condemn the redistricting plans, meet with Black Caucus members to discuss corporate America's role in protecting voting rights and disclose their political donations to Republican politicians in states that are redistricting their congressional maps.
President Donald Trump last year kicked off the unusual mid-decade round of congressional redistricting when he pushed Texas lawmakers to redraw their maps in a way that would add Republican seats. Democratic-led California responded, but it has been mostly Republican states redrawing their lines since as the party tries to maintain its majority in the U.S. House during this year's midterm elections.
The effort was supercharged by the Supreme Court decision, which allowed even more Republican states to redraw congressional maps that previously had protected minority communities.
Horsford, who chaired the Black Caucus during President Joe Biden's Democratic administration, said the caucus is demanding that companies “stand on the side of democracy, fairness and equal representation.”
“This is about power, who holds it and what it’s used for,” he said. “And when you’re diluting Black economic and political power, we need to know where these companies stand in this moment, and what side of history they’re on.”
FILE - Target CEO Michael Fiddelke speaks at Target's Financial Community Meeting at Target headquarters in Minneapolis, Tuesday, March 3, 2026. (AP Photo/Tom Baker, File)
Rep. Yvette Clarke, D-N.Y., chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, prepares for a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
FILE—Rep. Terri Sewell, D-Ala., center, is surrounded by members of the Congressional Black Caucus as they speak to reporters in the wake of the Supreme Court ruling to strike down a majority Black congressional district in Louisiana, at the Capitol in Washington, Wednesday, April 29, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite, File)
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., and members of the Congressional Black Caucus speak outside the Capitol in Washington, Tuesday, May 19, 2026. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
