The story from “Empire” Star Jussie Smollett keeps falling apart as time goes by.
Police have now scoured hundreds of hours of video footage and have found nothing resembling an attack on the star.
Keep in mind the alleged attack occurred in one of the most surveilled areas in the United States.
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Fox 32 Chicago reporter Rafer Weigel said “My sources in Chicago PD are telling me this is looking more and more like a hoax.”
https://twitter.com/RaferWeigel/status/1090611137291390977
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There are cameras all over the place but none caught the alleged vicious attack, The Daily Mail reported.
However, police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi noted there are gaps and none of the footage police have reviewed shows the alleged attack.
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Smollett, who is black and gay and who plays the gay character Jamal Lyon on the hit Fox drama, said the white men wearing ski masks assaulted him, hurled racist and homophobic slurs at him, doused him with an ‘unknown chemical substance’ previously reported as bleach and put a thin rope around his neck before yelling ‘this is MAGA country’ and fleeing.
Guglielmi said detectives investigating the allegations as a possible hate crime, have looked at hundreds of hours of surveillance video from businesses and hotels in the heavily monitored area.
But he said they still need to collect and view more. He said they are expanding the search to include footage from public buses and buildings beyond the crime scene’s immediate vicinity in the hopes of spotting the men who match Mollett’s description of the suspects.
‘We haven’t seen anybody, at this point, matching the description he gave, nobody looks menacing and we didn’t find a container anywhere,’ Guglielmi said, referring to a container for the liquid that was thrown at the actor.
Chicago has one of the most sophisticated and extensive video surveillance systems in the US, with thousands of CCTV cameras mounted on street poles, skyscrapers, buses and in train tunnels.
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https://twitter.com/CamelFro/status/1090417544417198080
Police has reviewed #hundreds of hours of video & STILL no footage of the #alleged attack of #JussieSmollett? Smells like a #hoax https://t.co/0tDqEPYoih
— Penny Lane 🗽🌎 (@PennyLanePicks) January 30, 2019
It sounds uncharacteristic to hear “MAGA country” in (River North especially) Chicago – either way unfortunate incident.
— Donna Ricchio (@DonnaRicchio) January 30, 2019
https://twitter.com/theJuiceClark/status/1090651803442733056