Alabama Shakes drummer arrested in Alabama on child abuse charges

LIMESTONE COUNTY, Ala. (TCD) --

The drummer for the Grammy Award-winning band Alabama Shakes was arrested on March 24 on child abuse charges.

WHNT-TV reports a Limestone County grand jury indicted Steven Johnson on charges of willful torture, willful abuse, and cruelly beating or otherwise willfully maltreating a child under the age of 18. Johnson was held in the Limestone County Jail on $21,500 bond.

Further details of the arrest were not released.

Johnson was arrested in 2019 for violating a protection of abuse order against his ex-wife. The couple had divorced in 2018 after three and a half years of marriage.

AL.com reported Johnson's ex-wife accused him of breaking into her home, and choking, stalking, and injuring her, and a judge issued a protection order in March 2019. Johnson was then arrested for violating the order in September 2019. He had previously pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of criminal mischief for an April incident.

Johnson pleaded guilty in March 2020 to violating a domestic violence protection order in Limestone County and was sentenced to two years of probation, with a suspended sentence of a year in jail.

The band Alabama Shakes has won four Grammys, but they've been on hiatus since 2018.

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