At around 1 a.m. on June 13, John Randal Tyson, the slim and boyish 34-year-old scion of the Tyson Foods empire, tried to level with the Fayetteville, Ark., police officer who just pulled him over for suspected drunk driving. “Can I ask you a genuine preference?” Tyson says in a bodycam video, one hand to his chest, perhaps in an effort to convey sincerity. “Which is, like, if I get in trouble tonight, my life will be ruined.”
The statement is not a question or a preference, and it sounds like the hyperbolic ramblings of a guy who has had too many Miller Lites (which Tyson says he was drinking that night, according to the police report obtained by Fortune). But it’s easy to understand why, in that moment, he felt doomed.
