Las Vegas Police Deny Racial Profiling of NFL Star Michael Bennett
The arresting officers were Hispanic males.
Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett accused Las Vegas officers of racial profiling and excessive force after the Mayweather-Mcgregor fight in August.
Bennett claimed that the police singled him out and one even threatened to “blow his head off.” The NFL backed Bennett’s story, but the Las Vegas Metr0 Police Department (LVMPD) has strongly come out and denied all of Bennett’s claim. The two arresting officers are Hispanic males.
Detective Steve Grammas, the president of the Las Vegas Metro Police Protective Association, has even asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to investigate Bennett’s actions.
The incident took place on August 25 at 1:30AM when the police received a call about a possible shooter around Drai’s nightclub in the Cromwell casino. Kevin McMahill, the Undersheriff of the LVMPD, described the situation at a press conference. From CBS Sports:
After clearing the casino, a team of officer’s started heading toward Drai’s nightclub, and while they were on the way there, they located Bennett.
“As they moved toward the nightclub, an individual later identified as Bennett was seen crouched down behind a gaming machine as the officers approached,” McMahill sald. “Once Bennett was in the officer’s view, he quickly ran out the south doors, jumped over a wall onto Flamingo Road East of Las Vegas Boulevard into traffic.”
According to McMahill, the officers viewed Bennett’s actions as suspicious, which is why he was handcuffed.
“Due to Bennett’s actions, and the information the officer’s had at the time, they believed that Bennett may have been involved in the shooting and they gave chase,” McMahill said. “Bennett was placed in handcuffs and detained while officers determined whether or not he was involved in the incident.”
The police handcuffed Bennett for 10 minutes. TEN MINUTES. McMahill also said that Bennett told the officers on the scene “that he ‘understood.'” CBS Sports continued:
“Mr. Bennett, at the scene, had the incident explained to him by a supervisor and he said that he understood and that he had no problem with what the officers did,” McMahill said.
The officers had no idea what the shooter looked like and they became suspicious because he took off after he saw them.
McMahill did say that Bennett mentioned “the officer pointed a gun at his head.” That officer either didn’t have a body camera or if he did it was turned off. He said that is what the police will investigate:
“We learned of Mr. Bennett’s allegations just this morning and an internal investigation has been opened,” McMahill said. “Part of that investigation includes pulling footage from dozens of body cameras. As of today, we know there are at least 126 videos associated with those cameras that we have to review. As you can imagine, it takes a significant amount of effort and time to review all the video and available evidence. If the investigation reveals that any polices or training was violated, those officers will be held accountable.”
Here is the letter Grammas wrote to Goodell:
#BREAKING: letter from union for @LVMPD officers to @nflcommish requesting investigation into Michael Bennett @mosesbread72 @LVPPA @8NewsNow pic.twitter.com/B7tdqgag7K
— Vanessa_Murphy (@Vanessa_Murphy) September 7, 2017
This is Bennett’s statement:
Equality. pic.twitter.com/NQ4pJt94AZ
— Michael Bennett (@mosesbread72) September 6, 2017
Either way we’ll get answers soon. Every inch of Vegas is covered with cameras.
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Comments
Yes, but were they White Hispanics?
The real issue is why did they focus on Bennett and did they hold a gun to his head. What was it about him that triggered the cops to focus on him. They say he did something suspicious, so what was it.
The post says what they found suspicious: “Bennett was seen crouched down behind a gaming machine as the officers approached […] Once Bennett was in the officer’s view, he quickly ran out the south doors, jumped over a wall onto Flamingo Road East of Las Vegas Boulevard into traffic.” That’s not normal behavior. I wonder why he did behave that way. Assuming, of course, that the officers are telling the truth.
Very biblical – Proverbs 28:1 The wicked flee though no one pursues, but the righteous are as bold as a lion.
He ran.
Did he get a first down?
The call on the field seems to be no, but once all of the race hustlers get a hold of this, we’ll find out what the call is from the MSNBC replay booth.
They’re white NOW.
Michael Bennett listed all the shooting of black men by cops over the last few years as if those shooting were all the same. They weren’t. Every case is fact specific. Some were justified (in my opinion) and some were not.
As we saw with Justine Damond, white people can be wrongfully shot by police too. And as we saw in Utah last week, police misconduct can be directed to white nurses.
It is not just a black and white issue.
I wonder if Mr. Bennett realizes Trayvon Martin wasn’t shot by the cops…
That would require reading, and reading comprehension.
True. He was a volunteer security guy.
No, he was a private citizen in his own neighborhood.
A shooting in my opinion that was NOT justified was Philando Castille.
Listen again to the Castile audio. When officer Yanez says “Okay, don’t reach for it” (“it” being the gun that Castile had just told the officer he was carrying), Castile answers: “I have to,” and keeps reaching FOR HIS WALLET (which the officer had asked him to retrieve).
EVERY news outlet mis-transcribed Castile’s reply as “I’m not,” but his actual words are perfectly clear. Listen again and you will see.
A tragic mis-communication, but there was obviously nothing Yanez could have done at that point but shoot. He had to interpret Castile as asserting a determination to pull his gun.
Credit for noticing Castile’s actual words goes to gunwriter Massad Ayoob. That people still don’t know about it shows something very wrong with our information transmission mechanisms, even beyont the fact that our establishment media is nothing but an army of truth-hating bigots.
Castile wasn’t saying “I have to.”, he was saying “I’m not reaching for it.”, being confused about what “it” was, he kept reaching. He was gonna comply, but he got high.
Being high does not help.
So Officer Yanez gives contradictory instructions, Castille tries to follow them, and he gets shot.
That explains the shooting, but does not justify the shooting. I never thought Yanez did anything more than panic. You can see that in how he reacted after the shooting. The jury acquitted Yanez of criminal culpability, but he justifiably was asked to resign as a cop.
His instructions weren’t contradictory, they were sequential, and Castile was in no state of mind to understand, or to drive, or to carry a gun. Bye, Phil!
The way Bennett was held may or may not have been appropriate, but his leaping to the conclusion that it was because of his skin color seems like a wild guess at best.
Here’s a similar case closer to home for me, both geographically and ethnically. I don’t know the Finks, but I’m probably at most two degrees away from them. I don’t know how much credence to put in the description of their treatment, but I find it completely plausible. Cops can be brutal bullies and power freaks. And it’s even possible that antisemitism was a motive, since there’s no denying that it exists, even among policemen, but going on the facts reported I can’t for the life of me see how they concluded that it must be so. It seems a wild guess when the true motive could be anything.
Assuming racism isn’t a wild guess, it’s the default position.
From Bennett’s letter….
until they apparently realized I was not a thug, common criminal or ordinary black man but Michael Bennett a famous professional football player.
It seems apparent that although Bennett was not beaten or abused, his ego was certainly bruised. Methinks that is the real problem here-the police didn’t recognize that he was the famous Michael Bennett,
Bennett was projecting his own disdain for ordinary black men who aren’t Michael Bennett onto the police.
Amazing how many cases there are like this where “the officer either did not have a body camera or it was not turned on.”
An unfortunate but very obvious (and very reasonable) suspicion is that is was turned on but didn’t show what somebody wants it to show.
The only way to avoid this is to turn on the damn cameras, and keep them on.
heh. My response to him being a famous NFL star would be—then Wow, the – I guess its going to be horribly inconvenient for you to miss training to come down here for one or more court appearances.
Please fast forward this tape 7 years to when this big mouth punk is bankrupt and trying to sue the NFL for all of his TBIs.
He may be a great player, but he is a complete and total asshole. And I am a huge Seahawks fan. He is one of those jerks who sits for the Anthem. I used to by the occasional ticket, but I won’t as long as he keeps up that crap. He makes me less interested in watching the games and being a fan. Asshole.
He wasn’t worth the research of his stupid “cause”, but this thought definitely entered my mind as soon as I read it was a Seahawks player because a few of them are ijits like this.
Why am I not surprised?
Ok, Mr. Bennett says he was being harassed cause he’s black.
I watched the police body cam video that the undersheriff showed…
There were quite a few black guys running and the police didn’t seem to bother any of them…
So I guess the question is, why did the cops take special notice of Mr. Bennett?
They were all wide receivers, he’s a defensive end. It’s like Zombieland.