Chicago police released the surveillance video that was part of evidence collected in their investigation of the alleged attack on Empire star Jussie Smollett in January. One of the newly released videos is from the bodycam of a police officer who responded to Smollett’s call at Streeterville, Chicago.
The video shows Jussie Smollett with a noose around his neck several minutes after the alleged homophobic attack back in January.
He claimed that two men wearing MAGA hats and yelling homophobic and racist slurs attacked him. The men, according to Smollett, poured bleach over him and put the noose around his neck.
When the officers arrived, Smollett appeared to be very concerned to avoid alerting his neighbors about what was happening. When the officers entered his apartment and noticed the noose around his neck, they asked if he wanted to take it off. He told them that he left it around his neck only because he wanted them to see it as evidence.
When Smollett’s manager, who accompanied the officers to his apartment, informed him that a police bodycam was recording the interaction, he said he did not want to them to record the incident and requested they turn off the cam.
Another surveillance video (see below) shows the Osundairo brothers, Ola and Abel, apparently running down the street from the South Water Street scene of the alleged attack, shortly after 2:00 a.m. on January 29.
Another video taken before the alleged attack shows the Osundairo brothers, Ola and Abel, in a taxi apparently on their way to the place where the alleged assault occurred. Both men can be seen wearing hoodies. They get out of the taxi at about 1:22 a.m. and one of them can be seen wearing a ski mask.
In an extended version of the video above obtained by TMZ, the brothers are shown walking away after they got out of the taxi, but they don’t appear to be carrying anything that might have used in the alleged attack.
The video below shows the Osundairo brothers arrested by police and taken in for questioning after they returned from a short trip to their native country, Nigeria.
After Smollett called the police to his apartment in January, they started investigating and eventually concluded that the Empire actor staged the attack against himself with the help of the Osundairo brothers.
Police then charged Smollett with a felony count of filing a false report, and a grand jury indicted him for 16 felony counts of disorderly conduct for filing a false report.