RIO DE JANEIRO (AP) — A top Brazilian police official says Ryan Lochte and three other American swimmers were not the victims of a robbery as some of the athletes had claimed.
Civil Police Chief Fernando Veloso says the four men became rowdy while at a gas station early Sunday after a night of partying. He says they were inebriated, and broke down the door of a bathroom, a soap dispenser and a mirror.
Veloso told a Thursday news conference that “no robbery was committed against these athletes. They were not victims of the crimes they claimed.”
Veloso says police had interviewed the taxi driver with the men that night and two security guards who confronted them at the bathroom.
He did not say whether the guards pulled their guns on the swimmers but says investigators had found no excessive use of force. An official who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation was ongoing told The Associated Press earlier Thursday that two security guards pointed guns at the swimmers.
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