Bennett Arrest Footage Provides Different Perspective

Body cam footage of Michael Bennett's arrest in Las Vegas provides an alternative perspective.

Oct 5, 2017 by Kolby Paxton

Bennett Arrest Footage Provides Different Perspective

The following article was written by FloSports' senior vice president and general counsel Paul Hurdlow. As was tragically illustrated on Sunday night in Las Vegas, the job that law enforcement is asked to do on a daily basis is both intensely dangerous and difficult. Our respect and gratitude knows no bounds.

In "To Kill a Mockingbird," Atticus Finch tells his daughter Scout, "You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view… until you climb into his skin and walk around in it."

This essay is about that and about my profound sadness over the state of race relations in our country.

I strive to avoid political discussions on Facebook, and I've generally declined to weigh in on the NFL "take-a-knee" protests of racial imbalance in our country. But, last week, my Facebook feed blew up with news and comments on the release of body cam footage by the Las Vegas Metro Police Department that it claims shows its officers acted appropriately when they forcibly detained Michael Bennett of the Seattle Seahawks recently.

Bennett is one of the NFL players who routinely sits while the national anthem is played before games.

Subsequent to his detention, Bennett has complained his civil rights were violated by LVMPD and that its mistreatment of him was based upon his race. The LVMPD says the body cam video shows otherwise, and some Facebook factions are trumpeting their views that the video shows yet another instance in which the racial narrative has fallen apart and the take-a-knee protests are not well founded.

I hadn't previously paid a lot of attention to this incident, but for some reason I decided to watch the videos. I suppose I wondered whether the various characterizations of the video were accurate and whether Bennett has been unfair in his criticisms of the police. And, based on the video that was released, it's hard to argue with the LVMPD's perspective -- the video doesn't reveal profiling or excessive violence under the volatile circumstances of a suspected active shooter in a casino.

(It should be noted that there does not appear to be good body cam video of the moments when Bennett was first detained, and those moments feature most importantly in Bennett's claims.)

As I watched the video, however, it almost immediately became about something other than whose version of the incident is more accurate. For me, this isn't a video about who was right and wrong on this chaotic night in Las Vegas. It is a video that depicts, powerfully and disturbingly, the way an innocent black man in this country feels when he is confronted by the police.

Here you have Michael Bennett -- a wealthy, powerful, respected family man in the prime of his life. He goes to Las Vegas to watch a big boxing match and ends up in a casino where shots are reportedly fired and the police respond.

Bennett is shown walking out of the room where the shots were reportedly fired and then at some point begins running to get out of the casino while other patrons are lying down. The cops -- believing they may be dealing with an active shooter situation -- give chase and ultimately capture Bennett. So far, to me, this all seems to be appropriate -- or, at the very least, understandable -- behavior by all involved.

What's sad, what I can't get out of my mind, is that Bennett is obviously terrified. This big, powerful man, who fears nothing when he battles 300-pound opponents every Sunday, seems to be afraid the police might shoot him at any moment. He so desperately wants to be anywhere other than that casino. He mentions his family, as though he may not see them again. He calls the police officer "sir."

For their part, once the police have Bennett controlled, they explain their actions to him, then release him when they realize he's not their shooter. Bennett at one point acknowledges he understands why the police gave chase under the circumstances.

Perhaps if Bennett follows through with his stated intention of filing a civil rights lawsuit, we'll someday know more about whether the police acted correctly. But I've already learned something different, something I hope I will remember for the rest of my life. This video made me feel -- in a way nothing else has -- that the fear Bennett displays is probably the way most black men feel whenever they have an interaction with the police, at least to some extent. This Las Vegas thing was obviously an especially intense situation, but at its basic level it is not unique. I'll bet a black man getting pulled over for speeding at night has that same sort of fear, a fear I have never, and will never, experience.

I think that really sucks.

And based on the take-a-knee protests from other powerful athletes, I think it's safe to assume that they think it sucks, too.