Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett is accusing the Las Vegas police of racial profiling and excessive force, and now the police union is accusing Bennett of false accusations.
In a letter to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, the police officers’ union president, Detective Steve Grammas, requested that the league “conduct an investigation, and take appropriate action, into Michael Bennett’s obvious false allegations against our officers.”
The letter says the officers who stopped Bennett did so because he acted in a suspicious manner when the officers were called about a shooting. The union denied that race played a role in the decision to detain Bennett.
“Our officers, who are both minorities, had the legal right, and obligation, to detain Bennett based upon the nature of the call and Bennett’s unusual and suspicions actions,” the letter says. “Our officers did not detain Bennett because he was, ‘a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time.'”
The letter does not deny Bennett’s claim that the officer pointed a gun at him and threatened to “blow my f—ing head off.” The officer had his body camera turned off at the time of the incident.