Watch: Police Release Videos of Michael Bennett Incident in Las Vegas
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department held a press conference Friday and announced that they found no evidence of excessive force in the August incident involving Michael Bennett.
Bennett, a star defensive end for the Seahawks, said police racially profiled him while he was heading back to his hotel after the Floyd Mayweather vs. Conor McGregor fight on Aug. 26. He said he was detained and that police pointed guns at him "for doing nothing more than being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time."
During the press conference, the police showed multiple police body camera videos of the incident. Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said the videos, which were examined as part of an internal investigation launched after Bennett's claims of wrongdoing, show that the officers acted in accordance with their training.
A video does show an officer with his weapon drawn above Bennett's head. The LVMPD said they were responding to reports of gunshots in a casino—though no evidence of gunfire surfaced—and apprehended Bennett on reasonable suspicion.
Bennett also said that an officer threatened to "blow (his) head off," but Lombardo said he did not see any officer say that in the more than 800 videos the department examined.
In one of the videos shown at the press conference, Bennett appears to be hiding in a casino before running across the casino floor. Another shows Bennett frantically yelling that he did not do anything while officers tell him to "just sit down."
In Bennett's statement, he said he was handcuffed so tight that his fingers went numb. An officer can be seen on video saying "I am going to check that they're not too tight, ok."
In another video, an officer is seen explaining Bennett's detainment to him.
"We don't have time to figure everything out, so that's why this happened," the officer says. "I believe you 100 percent you didn't do anything."
Police say Bennett was detained for a total of 10 minutes, seven of which were spent in a police car, before he was explained the situation and released.
Notably, the police do not have video from the officer who actually detained Bennett, as his body camera was not on. Police said two other people were detained—one black man and one Hispanic man.
"Mr. Bennett has a valid perspective as a person who experienced a reasonable suspicion stop for a felony crime," Lombardo said. "Those who experience such a stop, especially when they have not committed a crime, are not likely to feel good about it. But there is a reason why officers are trained to do what they do and what they did that night."
