The Cleveland Division of Police is launching an investigation regarding its handling of the Kareem Hunt incident from February.
Cleveland police shared an update on their website on Wednesday that says they will be investigating two aspects of the Hunt matter.
1) They will investigate how a copy of the police report was shared with an NFL representative without going through official channels.
2) They will investigate their overall response to the incident.
Here is the exact language from the update:
“Following an internal review, it has been determined that in February 2018 a member of the Cleveland Division of Police provided a copy of the police report involving the February 10, 2018 assault incident at The 9 to a representative from the National Football League.
“The report did not go through the official public records request process.
“The Cleveland Division of Police is conducting an internal investigation regarding the overall response to the February 10, 2018 incident.”
TMZ Sports published video of Hunt shoving and kicking a woman at his apartment/hotel complex in Cleveland in February. Though details of the incident had been reported by the media in February thanks to the information from the police report, last Friday was the first time video had been distributed to the public. Hunt ended up being placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt list and cut by the Kansas City Chiefs in response to his assault of the woman.
Both the NFL and the Chiefs had denied seeing the video until it was published by TMZ. One of the big questions has been why/how the NFL did not previously see the video, especially since they were conducting their own investigation and reportedly told the Chiefs to stop pursuing it. The other question is why/how the police decided not to pursue the video if it was available to them.
Neither Hunt nor the woman involved were charged with any crimes despite each party being accused of assault. They were referred to the prosecutor’s office if they wanted to pursue charges.
