Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett claimed on Wednesday that Las Vegas police officers commanded him to the ground and held him at gunpoint “for doing nothing more than simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time” after the Mayweather-McGregor fight last month.
The onetime Super Bowl champion alleged via a lengthy statement on Twitter that after hearing what sounded like gunshots after the fight he and others began to run, but police officers quickly singled him out and forced him to the ground.
“[The police officer] placed his gun near my head and warned me that if I moved he would ‘blow my f—ing head off,'” Bennett said in the statement he posted to Twitter. He added that another cop placed a knee in the center of his back, making it difficult to breathe.
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According to Bennett, the officers never answered when the football player asked what he had done, but they released him once they confirmed his identity.
His statement concludes that he has retained famed civil rights attorney John Burris, who is well known for his work in police brutality cases — most notably the Rodney King case. Burris is to look into Bennett’s “legal options including filing a civil rights lawsuit for the violation of [Bennett’s] constitutional rights.”
The Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said that they would be releasing a statement later in the day to respond to the allegations. Via Twitter on Wednesday they said the case is under investigation.
“Reserve judgement,” the department tweeted. “We will address this publicly today.”
TMZ Sports published a video of the altercation in which Bennett is on the ground with a police officer pushing a knee into his back. One of the officers in the 33-second clip appears to be holding a handgun.
Bennett can be seen yelling and saying, “I wasn’t doing nothing man! I was here with my friends! They told us to get out — everybody ran.”
The statement from the two-time Pro Bowler also highlighted the inequitable treatment that he and other racial minorities receive and further explaining why he sits during the national anthem.
“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 said. “My life flashed before my eyes as I thought of my girls. Would I ever play with them again? Or watch them have kids” Or be able to kiss my wife again and tell her I love her?”
The football player said he could only imagine how those who died because of police violence felt, invoking the names of Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice and Charleena Lyles.
Colin Kaepernick, the unsigned-NFL quarterback who kneeled during the national anthem as a member of the San Francisco 49ers last year, tweeted his support for Bennett.
Other celebrities, athletes and sportswriters also said they stood with Bennett.