Seattle Seahawks star defensive end Michael Bennett says he is considering filing a civil rights lawsuit against Las Vegas police after a harrowing encounter last month.
Bennett was in Las Vegas on Aug. 26 to attend the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight. He says that as he was heading to his hotel afterward, he and hundreds of others heard what sounded like gunshots.
“Like many of the people in the area, I ran away from the sound, looking for safety,” he writes in a letter he posted to Twitter on Wednesday. “Las Vegas police officers singled me out and pointed their guns at me for doing nothing more than simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time.
“A police officer ordered me to get on the ground,” Bennett continues. “As I laid on the ground, complying with his commands not to move, he placed his gun near my head and warned me that if I moved he would ‘blow my [f******] head off.’ Terrified and confused by what was taking place, a second Officer came over and forcefully jammed his knee into my back making it difficult for me to breathe. They then cinched the handcuffs on my wrists so tight that my fingers went numb.”
Equality. pic.twitter.com/NQ4pJt94AZ
— Michael Bennett (@mosesbread72) September 6, 2017
Bennett says he felt helpless, lying handcuffed on the ground “facing the real-life threat of being killed.”
“All I could think of was ‘I’m going to die for no other reason than I am black and my skin color is somehow a threat,’ ” he writes.
He says they loaded him into the back of a police car, where he sat “until they apparently realized I was not a thug, a common criminal or ordinary black man but Michael Bennett a famous professional football player.”
TMZ posted video of part of the encounter, which shows an officer handcuffing Bennett on the ground as he protests, “I wasn’t doing nothing!”
A 31-year-old in his ninth season in the NFL, Bennett told ESPN last month that the violence in Charlottesville, Va., linked to a white nationalist rally persuaded him to sit during the national anthem for the entire 2017 season. He grew up in Houston and recently announced a campaign to raise relief funds for those affected by Hurricane Harvey.
“I have always held a strong conviction that protesting or standing up for justice is just simply, the right thing to do,” he writes. “[E]quality 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.”
Las Vegas police told The Associated Press that they were checking casino and police body camera video, as well as written reports.
“Without looking at video footage or reading any reports we can’t say yet what happened,” Officer Jacinto Rivera told the news service.
Bennett has hired prominent civil rights attorney John Burris to explore his legal options, including filing a civil rights lawsuit.
“We think there was an unlawful detention and the use of excessive force, with a gun put to his head,” Burris told the AP. “He was just in the crowd. He doesn’t drink or do drugs. He wasn’t in a fight. He wasn’t resisting. He did nothing more or less than anyone in the crowd.”
Colin Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback who started the national anthem protests last season, tweeted his support of Bennett.
“This violation that happened against my Brother Michael Bennett is disgusting and unjust,” he wrote. “I stand with Michael and I stand with the people.”
Bennett says the system failed him. “I can only imagine what Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, and Charleena Lyles felt,” he writes.
Martin, a black teenager, was fatally shot by a neighborhood watch volunteer. The others, who were also black, were killed by police.
Celebs think the real world will never break through their fantasy land
Welcome to the party pal
And I doubt it was because your black
It’s because pigs are shit , it don’t matter what job you have , how much money you have or don’t have , or the color of your skin
Pigs act like pigs
I bet his liberal ass never stopped playing a kids game long enough to learn about what the rest of us folks have to deal with them
Oh and BTW Travon got exactly what he was asking for , not even sure why his miserable existence was even brought up in this poor poor pitiful me letter to the “world”
The world don’t give a F bout you any more than I do
Use your Celebrity powers for good and quit crying about it and do something rather than playing games
Well said!
” The world don’t give a F bout you any more than I do ”
Unfortunately, the world ‘thinks the world’ of athletes, actors, models, Kardashians…..at least here in the US ‘world’.
Maybe I should have qualified that statement with
Real people don’t give a F about them, any more than I do
?
I was pissed , it was hard to keep my mind focused
I’ll try better next time
“TMZ posted video of part of the encounter, which shows an officer handcuffing Bennett on the ground as he protests, “I wasn’t doing nothing!”
Yes you were.
You placed yourself in the pigs’ field of vision.
btw, pigs kill more whites than blacks. You’re just too damn focused on your OWN color to research a simple fact such as that.
Besides, it would be counterproductive to your persecution complex … kinda like the stinking jews and their Holohoax.
They don’t stand together, they sit together
Amazing. ..
Must have been a new metro cop.
Usually they don’t threaten.
They ” Just Do It.”
Hey that sounds like a good Nike add.
Another reason why had to escape Vegas.