The Chicago Police Department has released bodycam footage which shows officers responding to former Empire actor Jussie Smollett. Smollett, still wearing a noose around his neck following the staged hate crime, tells police “there’s bleach on me,” asks officers if he is being filmed and asks them to turn the cameras off.
Nearly 70 hours of footage were released, CBS Chicago reports.
Smollett was indicted on 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct on March 6 for falsifying reports that he was the victim of a hate crime. Those charges were abruptly dropped on March 26 and the case sealed with no new evidence that materially changed the facts presented in the case.
Cook county judge Michael Toomin appointed a special prosecutor on June 21 to investigate why charges were dropped.
Additional footage shows the Osundairo brothers, who assisted Smollett with the attack, wearing hoodies in a cab near the location of the incident. The alleged hate crime took place on one of the coldest nights of the year.
Another video shows the brothers running from the scene.
