Netflix’s Cowboys documentary highlights a 1996 plot by a Dallas officer to kill Michael Irvin, revealed during his drug trial.
DALLAS — Everyone remembers the cocaine-filled hotel room and mink coat. But Netflix’s Cowboys documentary revisited another sordid — and somewhat terrifying — element of Michael Irvin’s 1996 drug trial: The time a Dallas police officer tried to have him killed.
Yes, that’s a real thing that happened.
In the middle of Irvin’s trial on cocaine charges, authorities arrested Dallas police officer Johnnie Hernandez, the common-law husband of Rochelle Smith, one of the women who was called to testify in Irvin’s trial.
Hernandez, authorities said, had paid an undercover federal agent several thousand dollars as a down payment to kill Irvin, according to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram’s report.
At the time, it was reported that Hernandez was upset at Irvin for his involvement with Smith. Police caught wind that Hernandez wanted Irvin dead, the Star-Telegram reported, so they arranged an undercover meetup in the parking lot of a northwest Dallas shopping center.
“There, Hernandez solicited the murder Mr. Irvin, specified a price and paid the undercover officer a large sum of cash as partial payment,” then-Dallas Police Chief Ben Click told reporters.
Irvin didn’t know about the plot until Hernandez was already arrested. The Cowboys receiver ultimately reached a deal with prosecutors in his cocaine possession case, pleading no contest in exchange for probation and a fine.
Most Cowboys fans likely know something about Irvin’s legal troubles, in particular the infamous mink coat he wore to court in the middle of summer. Irvin in the documentary said he wanted to make a statement after what he thought was an unfair treatment from the Dallas prosecutors on the case.
But the plot on Irvin’s life? Even though it didn’t result anything (other than a six-year prison sentence for Hernandez), the explosive details seemed to recede from the story – until Episode 7 of “America’s Team: The Gambler and his Cowboys.”
The episode centered on Irvin’s spiraling legal problems in the wake of the Cowboys’ third Super Bowl victory.
Despite the drama, Irvin’s quarterback, Troy Aikman, stood by him, and even showed up at Irvin’s trial.
“I didn’t think it would mean as much as it did,” an emotional Irvin said on the documentary. “But yeah, he showed up.”
Aikman in the doc shared a personal moment he had with Irvin on the day the murder plot was revealed. Aikman said he was at the Cowboys facility at Valley Ranch when he saw Irvin on the practice field, running 110-yard sprints, the Cowboys’ infamous “110s” that Irvin could run all day.
“He’s doing conditioning and he runs and crosses the goal line,” Aikman said, “And he does his signature like he would do when he scored a touchdown. He holds the ball up. He’s showing it to the crowd. He’s waving it, and then he spikes it, this imaginary ball that’s in his hand. And I’m watching this, and I’m thinking, ‘God, this guy just had a hit on his life.’ And then I walked out and gave him a big hug. And he just started laughing because he knew that I’d observed the whole thing.”