Seattle Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett described disturbing mistreatment at the hands of the Las Vegas police in an open letter to the "world" that he posted to Twitter on Wednesday.
The incident reportedly occurred after the fight between Conor McGregor and Floyd Mayweather last month. After hearing "what sounded like gun shots" on his way back to his hotel, Bennett claims he was targeted by officers "for doing nothing more than simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time." Bennett wrote that he was ordered to the ground, while one officer "placed his gun near by head and warned me that if I moved he would 'blow my f---ing head off."
The officers' excessive use of force was unbearable. I felt helpless as I lay there on the ground, handcuffed, 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.' 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? [Michael Bennett, via Twitter]
Eventually the police identified Bennett as "a famous professional football player," he said, and let him go. "This fact is unequivocally, without question, why before every game, I sit during the national anthem — because equality doesn't live in this country," Bennett wrote.
Read Bennett's full letter below. Jeva Lange