On Thursday, a day after Seahawks defensive end Michael Bennett claimed that he was the victim of excessive force and racial profiling by the Las Vegas Police Department late last month, the police department asked NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and the league to investigate the incident for "obviously false allegations" from Bennett.
Goodell, who supported Bennett in a statement on Wednesday evening, has no plans to open an investigation.
"There is no allegation of a violation of the league's personal conduct policy and therefore there is no basis for an NFL investigation," NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy wrote in response to the LVPD's request, via ESPN.com.
NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith also issued a statement: "There are no grounds for the NFL to investigate our union rep, and I look forward to Roger confirming the same."
Bennett detailed a harrowing encounter with Las Vegas police that took place after attending the Floyd Mayweather-Conor McGregor fight. Bennett said he heard gunshots as he was walking back to his hotel and as he and others began to flee the area, police "singled" him out. Bennett ended up on the ground with police pointing a gun at him for "nothing more than being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time."
The police disputed Bennett's claims of racial profiling, but video footage of the incident left his brother, Packers tight end Martellus Bennett, shaken. Then, on Thursday, Steve Grammas, president of the Las Vegas Police Protective Association, wrote the letter to Goodell, which included this passage:
"While the NFL may condone Bennett's disrespect for our American Flag, and everything it symbolizes, we hope the League will not ignore Bennett's false accusations against our police officers."
Bennett has knelt during the national anthem this season to protest social injustice.
"[The violence in] Charlottesville was the tipping point for me," Bennett told CNN last month after the violent "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, left one woman dead and 19 injured. "To see so much hate. … There was no way I could go out there and hide behind the game."
On Wednesday, the Seahawks defender explained why he continues to protest.
"I have always held a strong conviction that protesting or standing up for justice is just simply, the right thing to do," Bennett explained in a tweet. "This fact is unequivocally, without question why before every game I sit during the national anthem -- because equality doesn't live in this country and no matter how much money you make, what job title you have, or how much you give, when you are seen as a 'N*****,' you will be treated that way."
Meanwhile, John Burris, the attorney representing Bennett in the Las Vegas incident, said that for the police union to question Bennett's integrity is "outrageous." "To suggest he is lying without having conducted an investigation is ridiculous," Burris told the Seattle Times.
Burris said that a lawsuit "is imminent, just not today."
