Chicago police arrest two suspects in Smollett attack
The investigaCHICAGO — tion into “Empire” actor Jussie Smollett’s account of being beaten in a racist, anti-gay attack took another turn Friday when Chicago police said two men who had been questioned about the attack had been arrested on suspicion of a crime.
Police did not say what crime they may have committed, and they have not been charged, but spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said police consider them to be suspects in the attack.
The two men — whom police have identified only as N igerian brothers — were picked up at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on Wednesday and taken into custody after returning from Nigeria after police learned that at least one of the men worked on “Empire,” according to Guglielmi. He said he did not know what the man’s job was on the televi- sion drama.
He c o nfirmed that a search warrant was executed at the Chicago apartment where the men lived but did not have any information about what exactly what police found.
Guglielmi’s comments followed a furious 24 hours that included local media reports that the attack was a hoax. Police say those reports are unconfirmed.
Producers of the televi- sion drama also disputed media reports that Smollett’s character, Jamal Lyon, was being written off the show, calling the idea “patently ridiculous.”
Guglielmi reiterated Friday that there was “no evidence to say that this is a hoax” and that Smollett “continues to be treated by police as a victim, not a suspect.”
Smollett, who is black and openly gay, told ABC News in an interview that aired Thursday that the men police took into custody on Wednesday were the ones who hurled racial and homophobic slurs at him, beat him, threw an undetermined chemical substance and looped a rope around his neck before run- ning off. Smollett has said he was attacked while out getting food at a Subway restaurant in downtown Chicago.
Guglielmi said police have not found any surveillance video showing the attack itself, though they continue to look for such evidence. He says police also are contacting various retail stores in the hopes of determining who bought the length of rope that was around Smolllett’s neck.