Initially, Lochte and a few other swimmers reported that they were robbed at gunpoint by an armed man whom, they claimed, was dressed like a police officer.
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Lochte told NBC after he returned to the U.S. earlier this week that the swimmers stopped at a gas station and were robbed at gunpoint when they returned to their taxi. The surveillance video does show a man approaching the taxi with an object in his hand, but it’s not clear whether it is a gun.
After being detained in a Rio airport on Wednesday night, Georgia swimmer Gunnar Bentz has left Brazil. The swimmer also noted that he would release a statement about the situation. The guards claimed the taxi was told not to leave, and police were called.
Hours later, the official changed the story and said two security guards pointed guns at the swimmers. At one point one of them pulls a sign off of a wall and drops it on the ground behind them.
Sandusky said Lochte’s teammates “are cooperating with authorities and in the process of scheduling a time and place today to provide further statements to the Brazilian authorities”. “According to Veloso, they offered to pay in the form of a $20 bill and 100 reals (about $51)”. He gets out. At around the same time, on a different camera, another swimmer can be seen heading down an alley near the gas station bathroom.
But CCTV footage seemed to paint a different picture. In the view of the police, it was not an excessive use of force. However it was revealed at the press conference that Jack and Gunnar, who were recently detained on a plane heading back to the USA, admitted to the authorities that the robbery story was “fabricated”.
Bentz and Conger flew out of Brazil Thursday night after visiting a police station earlier in the day to revise their statements. On Sunday, Lochte had told NBC that the taxi he was travelling in with his three team mates was flagged down by robbers posing as police and they held a gun to his head during a robbery.
While Veloso said potential charges could include false communication of a crime and damaging private assets they were unlikely because the petrol station has been reimbursed for the damage and the owner was not pressing charges.
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One or more of the U.S. Olympic swimmers vandalized a bathroom at a gas station after the four left a party early Sunday, according to Rio’s Civil Police Chief Fernando Veloso. Lochte had reported that he and the other swimmers were robbed at gunpoint.
