Before the fight, I sat for the anthem. That’s not just for on-field. But it felt different. When I sit before a game, I am somewhat removed from the thousands of fans standing. But here, I had the intense experience of sitting for the anthem with a sea of people all around. The fight was entertaining, and afterward, I was hanging out at Drai’s casino, right next to the Bellagio, in the heart of the strip. I was in the lobby, just taking in the scene. Vegas is one of the great people-watching places on earth.
Suddenly there was a commotion, and I heard someone shout, “Gunshots! Gun! Gun! Shots fired!” There was a stampede to the door, and a bunch of statues were knocked over, the noise adding to the chaos. Then the police stormed in and yelled for people to evacuate the building. You didn’t have to tell me twice, and I ran. I wasn’t going to go out like that. Like the Batman comics say, “This would be a bad death.”
As I was scrambling to safety, police pursued me and forced me to the ground. They cuffed me, as I lay on my stomach, and put a weapon to the back of my head. An officer said if I moved he would “blow [my] fucking head off.” At the same time another officer jammed his knee in my back and cinched the handcuffs on me so tightly my fingers went numb. The knee in my back made me want to squirm involuntarily, but I was scared that if I moved, that could be the only excuse needed to send me to the next life.
With one of those officers on top of me, I couldn’t breathe. In great pain, and with a police officer’s weapon pointed at my head, all I could think was I’m going die for no other reason than I am Black and my skin color is somehow a threat. I thought about people like Oscar Grant, on his stomach in Fruitvale Station, handcuffed, police gun to the back of his head, and then the trigger was pulled. I thought about Charleena Lyles, how what happened to her could be my fate, and just how unreal it was that only weeks after I’d stood and marched with her family, maybe her family would have to march with mine. I thought about the Seahawks, playing the season with a number 72 patch on their jerseys. But most of all, I thought about whether I would ever kiss my wife again. I thought about whether I would ever see my daughters again, and sit on the floor and play with them. I kept asking, “Sir, what did I do?” and they told me nothing but “Shut the fuck up.” There was chaos around me, as the police dragged me across the pavement to the squad car, but I had never felt so alone, so powerless, as my hands and stomach were cut up by the pavement. The arresting officer turned off his body camera before he did this, for reasons that have yet to be explained to me.
Two more officers pushed me into the car. One jerked my head down so hard it wrenched my neck, and another officer slammed me in the stomach and shut the door. I asked over and over what they were charging me with and informed them I had rights that they needed to respect. No one answered me as I sat in the back of that police car.
I suddenly knew what so many Black people before me had experienced: Eric Garner, Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, Tamir Rice, Charleena Lyles, and too many others to name. I now know what it’s like to be treated like an animal. To be a target because of your race. I was guilty until proven innocent, and I knew that this brutality would be justified. After I’d sat in the police car for a period of time, the officers, at my insistence, Googled my name and saw that I was in fact a famous football player (clearly not famous enough), and they let me go. What if I weren’t famous? How would my night have ended? It showed me that because equality doesn’t live in this country, no matter how much money you make, what job title you have, or how much you give, when you are seen as a “nigga,” you will be treated that way.
Afterward, I went public with what happened. I waited a week because I needed to psychologically recover; also, Hurricane Harvey was wrecking Houston, and I didn’t want to take focus away from raising funds to help my hometown. When I did go public, the Las Vegas police union accused me of lying. They called on the NFL to investigate my “false statements” and said that my politics around the anthem actions somehow justified this move. They wrote to Roger Goodell, “While the NFL may condone Bennett’s disrespect for the American Flag and everything it symbolizes, we hope the league will not ignore Bennett’s false accusations against our police officers.” The craziest part is that video had already come out that showed exactly what I said had happened: me, on my stomach, hands cuffed, a weapon placed against the back of my head. No charges were brought against me.
And yet, to the police and people who
