Authorities in Rio say they have not had much luck in finding out who robbed Ryan Lochte and three of his Team USA teammates at gunpoint over the weekend, and the swimmers themselves were apparently not that helpful in the investigation.
A Rio police official told The Associated Press on Tuesday that investigators have been unable to track down the driver of the taxi or find any witnesses to question. Lochte and teammates Gunnar Bentz, Jack Conger and Jimmy Feigen reportedly did not call police, and they supposedly told authorities the next day that they were too intoxicated to remember many details of what had happened.
The group did not call police, authorities said, and officers began investigating once they saw media reports in which Lochte’s mother spoke about the robbery. Police interviewed Lochte and one other swimmer, who said they had been intoxicated and could not remember what type and color of taxi they rode in or where the robbery happened, the police official said. The swimmers also could not say what time the events occurred.
There was some confusion on Sunday about whether the robbery actually took place, with Lochte’s mother describing a “terrifying” text message she received from her son but the IOC denying anything happened. Lochte would later tell USA Today that the swimmers kept quiet about the incident initially “because we were afraid we’d get in trouble” for venturing outside the Olympic village for a party.
The AP notes that street crimes in Rio often go unsolved and unreported, so it is not that unusual for investigators to be lacking information. Lochte signed a statement on Monday confirming that what he told police is true.
“Ryan was a hundred percent cooperative and fully available when they reached out to us for an interview,” Lochte’s attorney Jeff Ostrow said. “It doesn’t behoove Ryan and anyone else to make up a story.”
Lochte has already given some chilling details of the robbery, and there’s no reason to think he fabricated them. Our initial thought about the confusion was that the swimmers were afraid to look bad for going to a party in a dangerous area they are not all that familiar with. It sounds like that was the case.
H/T Deadspin
