Police Body Cams Show Seahawks’ Michael Bennett Was Not Racially Profiled
Officers pass numerous black males in their pursuit of the fleeing Bennett
Earlier this month, Mary blogged about Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett claiming that he was racially profiled and victimized by Las Vegas police. Bennett, an early supporter of former 49er Colin Kaepernick’s anti-American protests, further claimed that one of the officers threatened to “blow [his] head off.”
Police responded to reports of gunfire in a casino, appropriately entered the casino with guns drawn, ordered those present to get down, and saw Bennett fleeing the scene.
Additional police body cam footage, along with various security camera footage, has been released and shows that Bennett defied police orders and ran from the casino. We do not hear whether or not Bennett was threatened with having his head “blown off,” however, because that officer’s body cam was not on. This officer may be disciplined for the lapse.
Watch the report:
From the video, it looks like the people who were not down on the floor were fleeing toward the exit behind the police entering that area. Running toward the police. Bennett, however, is running off to the side. He was probably panicked and looking for cover behind the slot machines there, but it was different enough from the behavior of the other civilians present to warrant police suspicion.
Although this footage is grainy, it appears that at least one black male was among those running toward the exit behind the officers. He was neither followed nor detained presumably because his behavior was not suspicious.
In the video initially released in early September, police can be heard shouting, “one running! There’s one running!” As they chased after Bennett who appeared to be fleeing the scene, the police pass several black males milling around just outside the casino. None are engaged by police.
It seems clear from the released video that the police officers were not interested in Bennett because he was black. There were plenty of other black males within inches of the officers at various times, but they were ignored completely as the police officers pursued Bennett.
This seems to contradict his insistence that he was targeted”for doing nothing more than simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time.” There were plenty of black men present at that place and time, yet it was Bennett’s behavior, and his alone, that drew police attention, as did his failure to comply with police orders.
Failing to stop when told to do so by police is a really bad idea, as Bennett quickly found out. Watch the video of police explaining to Bennett that his running from the scene instead of following police orders was the reason for his detention.
Police acted appropriately and professionally detaining Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett when he ran from a casino as officers searched for an active shooter following a report of gunfire at an after-hours club on the Las Vegas Strip, the head of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said Friday.
A review of hundreds of videos, including police body-worn cameras, found no evidence that the three officers who had direct contact with the NFL star early Aug. 27 profiled Bennett by race or used excessive force, Clark County Sheriff Joe Lombardo said.
“Mr. Bennett has a valid perspective as a person who experienced a reasonable-suspicion stop for a felony crime,” Lombardo told reporters. “Those who experience such a stop, especially when they have not committed a crime, are not likely to feel good about it.”
Bennett committed no crime, the sheriff said. But he was detained at gunpoint, handcuffed and seated for about 10 minutes in the back of a patrol car while police searched the crowded casino just hours after an Aug. 26 boxing match between Floyd Mayweather Jr. and Conor McGregor. What people thought was gunfire was actually the sharp sound of velvet rope stands knocked to a tile floor during a scuffle.
Once handcuffed and in police protection, officers repeatedly told Bennett to get in the car. He kept trying to explain why he ran instead of doing what he was told. He doesn’t seem belligerent, but he’s clearly upset. One police officer becomes (understandably) irate and cusses at Bennett in an apparent attempt to break through his hysteria. It worked. Bennett got in the car and calmed down.
Watch the footage from the police body cams.
The videos do seem to support the Las Vegas police conclusion that Bennett was not targeted due to his race.
Ironically, Bennett’s explanation of why he sits down during the national anthem may provide some insight into his attitude toward police and thus into why he behaved so suspiciously.
“I have always held a strong conviction that protesting or standing up for justice is just simply, the right thing to do,” Bennett explained. “This fact is unequivocally, without question why before every game, I sit during the national anthem – because equality doesn’t live in this country and no matter how much money you make, what job title you have, or how much you give, when you are seen as a ‘N—–,’ you will be treated that way.”
How tragic is it that Bennett appears to have been the only one present who sees himself this way?
DONATE
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Equality? What kind of equality? Equal in the eyes of the Creator? Equal at birth and at death? There is no such thing as everyone being equal is a liberal democracy. Anyone selling that is a hustler. Or maybe equally ignorant to the fact that if everyone is “equal”…a power so great is required that it betrays the whole notion of equal.
The progs won’t stop progging until there is equality of outcome.
Which reminds me of this absolute classic: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pdR7WW3XR9c
The esteemed, late Ernst Mayr (1904-2005), German-American ornithologist, taxonomist, population ecologist, evolutionary biologist, and father of the Biological Species Concept, said:
When Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that “all men are created equal,” he failed to distinguish between the civil equality of individual human beings and their biological uniqueness. Even though all of us are in principle equal before the law and ought to enjoy an equality of opportunity, we may be very different in our preferences and aptitudes. And if this is ignored, it may well lead to discord.
— Ernst Mayr, 2002, The Biology of Race and the Concept of Equality, Dædalus 131(1), 89-94.
All I see is highly trained cops doing an spectacular job in a very tense environment with thousands of people around any of which could be the gunman.
I’m also fascinated by the “conga-line” approach to crowd control. I wonder who gets to be the lucky guy (or gal) leading it.
And that Michael Bennett really sounds like a real tough and courageous guy in that second video, doesn’t he? Perhaps that’s why he’s lying, to cover less-than-stellar performance under stress.
Watching these videos numerous times, I was struck by how much we owe our police officers and other first responders. When there’s gunfire (or in this case, mistaken reports of gunfire) threatening the public, these brave men in blue run toward it, all the while shouting instructions to civilians in the vicinity in order to protect and preserve them. Law enforcement officers are incredibly brave and heroic in their dedication to serving and protecting.
The problem we face, however, is that what you and I see is not what Democrats have instilled in black people. They are trained to fear and disrespect law enforcement. Bennett probably truly believed that he was being targeted because he was black, even after it was painstakingly explained to him that wasn’t the case.
That he still believes this was a case of racial profiling and “being black in the wrong place and time” is discouraging. But it is more a reflection of his own biased and skewed worldview than of the facts depicted in videos thus far released.
We also need to keep in mind that since the rise of BLM, cops have been sought out and executed across this nation. This puts every police officer on a heightened level of alert and concern for their–in addition to their concern for the public’s and their fellow officers’–safety.
Watching these vids, the Las Vegas police conducted themselves in a professional manner that reflected their training and commitment to the citizens they have sworn to protect and serve..
Fuzzy, good point. Perhaps Bennett is not lying, just deathly afraid for his life at the time. Shame on BLM, the Dems, and the media for feeding that fear, and on himself for not using a tiny part of his considerable wealth to better inform himself. With great wealth comes great media access which translates into great power and great responsibility.
So true. The problem is that like all leftists they believe they know everything already. It doesn’t occur to them that what they are saying and believe is at best a viewpoint and at worst false. And it sure doesn’t occur to them to do their own research. For at least two decades, colleges and universities have been working overtime to ensure that critical thinking is abolished on their campuses. Instead, they work to instill their own ideology, without regard for actual history or facts. Who needs civics when you can finger paint for “social justice”? Who needs to read the Founders in American History if you can read modern takes on how oppressive, vile, racist, and despicable the Founders were? Who needs “Great Books” literature when you can read the substandard efforts of barely literate minority “authors” or the ridiculously absurd literary analysis of same?
As an anecdotal aside, I had a student (a freshman in college) who decided to write her course essay on “racist America.” When I sent my feedback that suggested she include mention of the Civil Rights Acts of 1875 and of the numerous civil rights acts passed in the following years, she wrote back telling me that she was “in the dirt angry” that she had been lied to about the African American experience in America. She had no idea that civil rights acts prior to 1964 even existed. She also said that she had learned that all the progress made by America’s black population was “ripped apart” (her words) by progressive lunatic Woodrow Wilson. I’m adding the “progressive lunatic” part all these years later, but my student, a young black woman, was clear that she was angry that she had been so ill-educated and ill-informed.
The problem, though, is that we don’t have cultural voice and despite immense political wins, the right keeps acting like it’s in the wrong and in the minority, even on the fringe.
If anything, the cops ran forward with little regard for their personal safety. It seemed unacceptably careless to me, but their is no doubt that they were responding quickly and willing to take casualties for the sake of putting down any illegal activity quickly to keep the public as safe as possible. I was impressed by the bravery shown, and the patrons, including Bennett the spooked bunny, should be grateful.
It’s possible that I might agree with Bennett’s understanding of ‘equality’, but to truly convince me that both myself and Bennett are right about America I think he should give me an equal share of his paycheck. I’ll do the same, give him an equal share of my military pension…and we can be ‘equal’.
Yippee-Skippy! Now that we’re both equal, perhaps he could give me a few pointers where I could get one of those ‘race cards’, the kind that earn ‘big bucks’ in America’s courtrooms. I’ve run out of most excuses for my cantankerous behavior, so a ‘race card’ seems the right answer.
Take the Knee (And Break It!) Seven Figure Salary Whiners and Trump’s NFL Statements
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3VmCkUShGLw
His job description should be changed from defensive end to whiney end. His story has gone way past defensive into the whiney area.
I’m black therefore I am discriminated against. It’s endless and I’m white married to a brown and we are both tired of it and yes I have been discriminated against for being a woman, white and now ageism.
Show me the money
1. cops show up, tell everyone to stay put.
2. one idiot decides to run away instead.
3. cops, quite rightly, chase down and detain idiot.
4. idiot complains about winning stupid prize received for playing stupid game he chose all on his own.
sympathy factor = zero.
How many times have you been pulled over for being a white man driving in the wrong place?
I’m a blue-collar guy who has lived & worked with black Americans my whole life, and listened to their stories. One of my bosses -straight out of central casting for “sober, trustworthy, and responsible”; he looked like Jeff Fishburne as Perry White- was pulled over because of the color of his skin. I’ve heard that story too many times to think it’s all a myth. On the other hand, I know some of these guys well enough to know that sometimes they think it’s because they’re black, when that’s not the case.
That is, I think, part of the problem many white Americans have understanding the attraction the BLM movement has for even younger black Americans. It only takes a couple of true stories to make the dodgy ones believable. That is self-evidently true for Mr. Bennett. He thinks he was chased because he was black. He has likely been raised to think that way, and as I pointed out above I don’t doubt he has friends who really have been subject to unwelcome scrutiny because of their race. I repeat: it only takes a couple of genuine race-based events to make all the shaky claims seem believable.
Dismissing all claims of racism begs the question.
i’ve been pulled over more than once for being white…
i’ve also been beaten up for being white.
i’ve had my belongings stolen because i was the rich white guy, even though i was was as poor as everyone else.
i’ve been passed over for promotions because i was white.
i’ve been given extra w*rk because i was white, and because the supervisor said no one else would do it, but he couldn’t fire them.
i wasn’t sent to training, because i was white, and the training had to be handed out “equitably”, yet when the person came back, got the promotion & the raise, then couldn’t/wouldn’t do the j*b, guess who had to figure out the system & do the w*rk, in addition to their own, with no extra pay or shifting of other duties?
yeah, i think i’ll #takeaknee and all the rich players & their apologists can kiss my a55 on national TV.
I used to be a public housing manager. I made my first visit to every complex in my territory late at night. Every single time, I was pulled over by the police for being white in a black neighborhood. I was always subjected to a field sobriety test and often had my car searched for drugs. There were occasions where I ended up in handcuffs “for my safety.”
It’s a terrible feeling to have a police officer approach your car with his gun drawn. But it’s also a reassuring feeling because you know they’re actually working to make the neighborhood safer.
I quit working in public housing after I was involved in a workplace shooting. The ironic thing is the same officer who pulled me over and put me in handcuffs my first day on that job responded to the active shooter call on my last day. I despised him when he made me stand in the freezing rain while he looked through my glove compartment and my trunk. And I loved him when he opened the door to my office and gave the all clear to leave.
Casey,
I have been hearing this a good bit lately in the next wave of faux discrimination claims by blacks. So I put this to the test. I have to drive about 200 miles per week in one go. So as cars passed, I tried to determine the race of the driver, it is impossible. Now, maybe the cops have a national course that they go to especially to target blacks, but somehow I doubt it. Now, the other leg of my investigation was to identify cars driving inappropriately and watch for those cars in the various traps that I know are on the road. And it seemed that blacks constituted the majority of the people explaining their action on the side of the road. It leads me to think that your coworkers are lying. Also I looked up traffic light violations in some of the town’s I know and blacks were higher inviolations, but these were camera mpnitored. Strange these things.
about 20 years ago a federal study on the NJ Turnpike found the same thing. Black drivers were speeding in far greater proportion than white ones.
Blacks commit crime at a much higher rate nearly across the board with respect to various types of crimes. They should be more concerned about assimilating into our society, controlling their behavior, and obeying our laws. It’s easier, however, to make excuses and blame others, especially when the Leftists encourage and reward you for doing so.
I’ve been pulled over for being a white woman driving in the wrong place. Only once, I grant, but I don’t often give the cops an excuse. When my license plate got bent, cop pulled me right over for being white at night in a black neighborhood. Pretty sure what happened is that the plates got his attention, and then white in black neighborhood + driving slow + bent plates = DRUG BUYER! Ding ding ding!
Once he saw that my driver’s license said I lived a block away he lost interest. I said I hadn’t seen the license plate, got told to fix it, and then he let me go away and resume searching for a parking place.
because that officer’s body cam was not on
The reason the entire nation is plagued by this black racist race-baiting BS is that the video evidence proving that it’s BS doesn’t exist. And it doesn’t exist because the police don’t have their cameras on.
Unless you’re one of the criminals yourself, evidence is your friend; and the more obvious the evidence (meaning, newsbite-friendly) the better. And evidence can’t get much better than color video and sound. Turn your damn cameras on, and stop with the excuses. Stop feeding The Narrative. It’s hurting us all.
I was in LE for 32 years. I’ll let you in on a little secret. The only reason that body cameras are being used is because the media and the racial grievance industry believes anything that any minority yahoo says which paints LEOs in a negative light. 90%+ of all citizen complaints against LEOs, for excessive force and violation of civil rights go absolutely nowhere, even in jurisdictions where they have those ridiculous civilian review boards. But, that never stops the media from painting the LEO as a racist, sexist jack-booted Nazi thug on the front page. When he is exonerated, the news account of that appears inside the last page of the lifestyle section next to the recipe for taco dip. If it appears at all. And, what is wrong with telling someone that you will blow their head off? Seems like a reasonable warning if you have reason believe that the person is armed with a dangerous weapon and may have just committed a crime.
Cameras are not the holy grail. There have a number of incidents where a working body cam did not produce any conclusive evidence that the officer did not do anything wrong. Angles are bad. Definition is iffy. And, there have been incidents where, though the officer’s actions were not wrong, his choice of words, under stress, or his demeanor, was portrayed to be inappropriate has been used to discipline him, inappropriately, simply because the administration wanted the incident to go away. Body cams can be a LEO’s friend. but, they can just as easily be used against him.
As to being stopped by the police, it doesn’t matter what race you are. If you act like a perpetrator, you WILL be treated like one. Run FROM the police, at a potential crime scene, and they will chase you. Refuse to stop running from the police, and they will face plant you or, possibly, shoot you, if you have a suspicious object in your hand. NOBODY gets shot standing with their hands over their heads, or lying on the ground, when told to do so by the police.
Paul that’s a great video of a great Prime Minister….. if Hillary still can’t figure out why she lost, and apparently she can’t, must have an endless supply of broken mirrors that she can’t figure out who that is in the mirror exactly, anyway, all she needs to do is view that video and see, and hear, a woman who deserved her position in life.
It had nothing to do with being a woman, but being smart enough and on the right side of policy…
Thanks
I am fed up with this “Blame whitey” for every problem people of color face in their lives. To my knowledge, I have not caused one of these people in my life to be discriminated against or to lose out because they are of color. What is it that people like me are to do with their petition of racial injustice? What do they want specifically? I don’t want to hear that all white people are racists and that people of color cannot get a fair shake in life. WHAT DO THEY WANT? Is it to send cops to training camps? What do they teach them? If a cop stops you and you get out of your car and are defiant and noncomplying, what is he supposed to do? Have any of you ever tried to handcuff a person who didn’t want to be handcuffed? Try it with a friend and you will see what a lone cop faces every stop he makes. As any woman will tell you men are problem solvers. Don’t tell us your problem for us to commiserate with you over. If you tell us your problem we want to fix it. So tell us what you want.
Please explain why an adult male in a casino in Las Vegas does not have an ID? The officers have to Google a picture of him to confirm his name to be as he claimed? Doesn’t he carry a wallet? What does he do for money – just carry a money clip with cash, no ID, no credit cards? If that is true, then why? Is it a “celebrity thing”? I cannot imagine being out in public and carrying no identification.
Reflecting further, perhaps the only police error I see is simply confirming that he is Michael Bennett simply through a Google search for a picture. Do officers really let you not prove identity with some kind of Federal/State ID?
This is a free country. You’re under no obligation to carry ID, or to show it to anyone if you don’t want to. You do have to identify yourself if stopped with reasonable suspicion, but you don’t have to prove it. The police don’t have to take your word for it, but if they actually do know your identity they can’t pretend not to. So having verified his identity, and therefore that he was unlikely to be the (imaginary, as it turned out) shooter, they had no reason to keep holding him.
If that was the case. I would opine that he lacks any sort of situational awareness or common sense. Put in the same situation (reported shooter, panic among the guests, police coming into a dangerous and unknown and deadly situation) I would think most would be cooperative rather than confrontational. It still seems like very odd behavior to me.
That’s putting it very nicely. You’re a much more charitable person than I am.
“You do have to identify yourself if stopped with reasonable suspicion … .”
I believe, per SCOTUS, you only have to identify yourself if arrested with probable cause. You are under no obligation to say or prove anything during a Terry (reasonable suspicion) stop.
If you don’t have ID and opt to verbally identify yourself, be honest, because giving a false name upon arrest (and, presumably voluntarily during a Terry stop) is a crime in most jurisdictions.
Nope. Reasonable suspicion is sufficient to justify requiring a suspect to disclose his identity. Note that the law in question was from Nevada.
That’s one way to not spend any money…don’t carry any on you!
Maybe he’s that guy in the group that never seems to have his wallet when the check comes….(Hey man, can you cover me?)
I assume he was carrying ID but refused to show it, telling them that if they wanted to confirm his identity they could easily find it themselves. Which was true, so they did.
Since he hadn’t been arrested, only “detained”, I imagine this would be called a “Terry stop”. In Nevada (and other states) there is “stop and identify” statute (NRS 171) and as I read the statute you are 100% correct – he must identify himself but cannot be forced to offer identification. So thanks, Milhouse, for pointing me to digging further, but I still think that under the situation most would have been more cooperative and less confrontational – the officers clearly had a difficult and dangerous situation facing them, why make it more difficult for them?
Oh, that’s easy, because he’s an entitled pr*ck.
Now that finally makes sense of it
Many years ago, in Israel, a policewoman stopped me and demanded to see my ID card. I politely replied that I was a foreigner and didn’t have one. She then asked to see my foreign ID card, and I replied that I was from a free country where we didn’t have those. She looked at me with utter incomprehension and asked “But then, how do you identify yourself?” I replied that when people ask me my name, I tell them. She could not wrap her mind around the concept.
Mind you, I was genuinely trying to cooperate, since I had no idea why she wanted to see my ID, and for all I knew I was hindering some important investigation, perhaps even related to terrorism. If I’d had some sort of ID on me I’d have shown it. Then she told me why she’d stopped me. As a typical New Yorker, I’d come to a one-way street, looked up it in the direction from which traffic would come and saw none, so I crossed it, disregarding the red light. She was going to issue me a ticket for jaywalking.
I said I was due to leave the country in a few days, and she said “No problem, before you leave take this to any post office and pay it”. Sure, like that was going to happen.