Sheriff: No evidence officers mistreated Seahawks’ Bennett

LAS VEGAS » 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 contactwith theNFL 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 reasonablesuspicion 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.

Video shows an officer with his gun out while handcuffing Bennett as he lies prone in a traffic lane on Las Vegas Boulevard outside the Cromwell casino.

But Lombardo said there was nothing to support Bennett’s allegation, made in a Twitter postmore than a week later, that an officer put a gun to Bennett’s head and threatened to blow his head off.

“From the evidence we have at this point, we don’t know ( the officer) said that,” the sheriff said.

Bennett’s post, titled “DearWorld,” said, “Las Vegas police officers singled me out and pointed their guns at me for doing nothingmore than simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Bennett announced in early August that he would sit during the national anthem this season to protest social injustice and was one the first NFL players to protest this year. He made the decision before protests by white supremacists at the University of Virginia. But Bennett said his decision was solidified by what happened in Charlottesville, Virginia, including the death of a young woman who was struck by