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Report: Two Nigerian Brothers Arrested in Jussie Smollett ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax UPDATE: Released Without Charges

Posted on | February 15, 2019 | Comments Off on Report: Two Nigerian Brothers Arrested in Jussie Smollett ‘Hate Crime’ Hoax UPDATE: Released Without Charges

 

Abimbola “Abel” Osundairo, 25, and his brother Olabinjo “Ola” Osundairo, 27, have been identified as the “persons of interest” taken into custody by Chicago police in connection with last month’s alleged “hate crime” against Empire actor Jussie Smollett:

Two brothers being questioned in the Jussie Smollett case are now under arrest, police said.
Obabinjo Osundairo and Abimbola Osundairo were arrested Friday in connection with an alleged attack on the “Empire” actor. The men were identified by their attorney, Gloria Schmidt.
At least one of the men worked on “Empire,” police said.
Police spokesman Anthony Guglielmi said authorities had probable cause to believe the men committed assault and battery against Smollett. But they had not been charged as of Friday afternoon.
Guglielmi would not comment on a possible motive.
Meantime, two sources with intimate knowledge of the investigation told CBS Chicago Investigator Brad Edwards the attack on Smollett was potentially orchestrated by the actor himself, and involved two other men.
But police say while there is no evidence documenting the alleged attack, there is also no evidence to say it is a hoax. They say Smullett is being cooperative at this time and continues to be treated as a victim, not a suspect.

More background on the suspects:

Court records show that one was charged with attempted murder in a 2011 stabbing that occurred in the 4200 block of North Ashland. That is less than a block from the home that police raided Wednesday night, and recovered personal effects including cell phones, a source said.
The one brother reached a plea deal with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to aggravated battery and was sentenced to two years of probation and was ordered to pay a $674 fine. His attorney in that case did not respond to interview requests. . . .
Both men, who are two of five siblings, previously played football at Quincy University, according to the college’s athletics website.
At least one of them went to high school near the home police raided, according to Quincy.
It is unlikely that the two were given scholarships to play, though. Court records show both men filed for bankruptcy in September 2016 and owed more than $120,000 in student loans.

Smollett had claimed he was attacked by two white Trump supporters who shouted homophobic and racist slurs and, “This is MAGA country.”

There were obvious reasons not to believe this story: Even if white racist homophobes were roaming the streets of Chicago in search of gay black men to terrorize, (a) why would they choose this actor and (b) why would they do it on a night when the temperature was below zero? Basic common sense suggested something was wrong with this story, but I guess basic common sense is not a job requirement for journalists.

 

Here’s some of that GQ article by Joshua Rivera:

Whiteness in 21st century America has an endgame, and it is this: to divest itself from the shame of its power, while working to revive the fear it needs in which to thrive. And there is work being done, work done by panels of respectable-seeming men and women on cable news networks dismissing the red MAGA hat as innocuous, work done by politicians who continue to openly lie about the danger immigrants pose to Americans while choosing to ignore that almost all violent extremist crime is committed by right-wing terrorists, by the refusal to acknowledge that bigotry is alive and well, perpetrated by racists and homophobes targeting people like Smollett, criminals who have no qualms in sharing what motivates them. Hate needs to sign its work. That’s how hate persists.
The assault of Jussie Smollett is not an isolated incident.

A fake hate crime is not an isolated incident? Whatever. Much like journalists, a lot of big-name Democrats don’t have basic common sense:

 

The liberal narrative, that America is full of racists and homophobes who routinely inflict violence on helpless minorities, is so deeply entrenched in the minds of Democrats and journalists (but I repeat myself) that they will instantly believe even the most improbable story, so long as it conforms to that narrative. Many liberals still believe that the 2016 Pulse nightclub massacre was a homophobic “hate crime,” despite the fact that the shooter, Omar Mateen, identified himself as an ISIS “soldier.” Muslim jihadists can commit terrorist atrocities in America and expect liberals to blame right-wing homophobes, and Jussie Smollett can have two Nigerians beat him up in Chicago and blame Trump.

UPDATE: Plot twist:

Chicago police on Friday night released two persons of interest without charging them in the alleged hate attack on “Empire” star Jussie Smollett.
“Due to new evidence as a result of today’s interrogations, the individuals questioned by police in the Empire case have now been released without charging and detectives have additional investigative work to complete,” Chicago Police said in a tweet Friday night.

We don’t know what this means. We must wait and see.



 

Category: Chicago, Crime, Racism

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