Video footage released on June 24 shows Jussie Smollett wearing a white rope around his neck on Jan. 29 as Chicago police arrived at the scene of what is now understood to have been an orchestrated attack.
“The reason I am calling is because of this s**t,” Smollett can be heard saying while another officer touches the rope looped around his neck.
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The officer interviewing him asks if Smollett would like to remove the rope.
“Yeah I do, I just wanted to you all to see it,” Smollet said. “They poured bleach on me.”
Playing the victim, Smollet then questions whether the police are recording the interview, which the officer confirms as his bodycam films the discussion.
“Yeah, this is all being audio and visually recorded,” the officer said.
Smollett then asks not to be filmed any more.
“I don’t want to be filmed, so can you please turn it off?” he said.
The actor claimed that two white men beat him up at about 2 a.m. local time on East North Water Street, before pouring bleach onto him and making remarks that Smollett considered to be racist and homophobic.
There is also extensive surveillance camera footage that police collected, including what appears to be the route taken to and from the scene of the staged attack by the key suspects Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo and Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo—two black Nigerian-American brothers who had been paid to stage the attack.
One of the videos appeared to shows the Osundairo brothers running through the streets at 2:04 a.m. just minutes after the so-called attack, TMZ reported.
“[Redacted name] stated that indeed was the bottle he filled with bleach and poured on Smollett and appeared to be the same picture he viewed the previous day,” the police report said.
Smollett alleged that the attackers then looped the rope around his neck, which he is believed to have continued to wear while he escaped to the safety of his apartment and waited for police to arrive.
Smollett was later indicted by a Chicago grand jury 16 felony counts on 16 counts for allegedly lying to police about the events of Jan. 29, according to reports on March. 8. He had also been charged with disorderly conduct in February.
In releasing the evidence, Chicago Police said it supports the conduct of who investigated the incident.