*It now appears that a gun was indeed pulled on Ryan Lochte and three fellow US swimmers in Rio, but not by men posing as policeman, as he initially told authorities.
According to TMZ’s account of surveillance video from a gas station, a security guard on duty pulled a gun on the four swimmers, demanding payment from them after they vandalized the restroom, including breaking down the door and urinating outside of the bathroom.
No gun is seen in the video, however, the swimmers are seen exiting a taxi with their hands up.
Watch below:
Sources connected to one of the swimmers, James Feigen, tell TMZ that all four of them, including Jack Conger and Gunnar Bentz, were intoxicated when they stopped to use the gas station restroom, but one or more of the guys urinated outside the bathroom, and also kicked in the bathroom door.
Meanwhile, the Associated Press, citing a Brazilian police official, reports that two of the station’s armed security guards “pointed guns” at the swimmers and demanded payment for the damage. According to TMZ, the guard “did take money from the swimmers, but only to cover the expenses, and then let them go.” A source from the Rio police, however, told the website that the gas station manager claims the guard NEVER pulled his gun and the manager merely asked them to pay, which they did.
TMZ further reports that there are three minutes of missing surveillance video that will back up Lochte’s story about being “robbed at gunpoint,” according to sources connected to the swimmer:
Our sources say Lochte and his team claim they were indeed taken out of a cab at gunpoint, but the video doesn’t show that because the gas station edited it out. We’re told Lochte mistook the uniforms worn by the security guards as police uniforms, and he claims during the missing 3 minutes he and the other swimmers were pulled out of the taxi at gunpoint. As for his claim the cab was pulled over en route, one of the sources concedes, “That’s a problem.” And our Lochte sources say reports that his 3 teammates admitted the story was a lie are untrue.
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