If this story is true, it's truly disgusting and I hope they catch the alleged assholes and throw them in jail for life.
But...eh...the details of this are really, really fishy. First he said he was attacked and TMZ reported that he told police that they wore MAGA hats and yelled "MAGA country!" at him along with homophobic and racists slurs. But, the police said he didn't report those MAGA details at all. They then went back to him later in the day (after these MAGA reports had been plastered all over the news and social media), and he changed his story to suddenly remembering that, yes, these details are correct.
Other details:
1) there are no witnesses
2) no camera footage showing the assault, even though there are supposedly numerous cameras around and FBI and cops have reviewed hundreds of hours of surveillance footage
3) they have him on camera eating at Subway around the time of the alleged attack (not sure if before or after, but I think it was before IIRC).
4) no real evidence to speak of other than a rope that he wore around his neck like a necktie and, for some reason, kept it around his neck for about an hour and was still wearing it when cops showed up at his place
5) only injury to him is a small abrasion on his cheek
6) it took place in a section of Chicago that would be totally empty at 2:00 AM and it was also a frigid 9 degrees F outside, which makes it hard for me to believe the alleged attackers were sitting around in 9 degree cold waiting on him
7) the assailants for some reason wore masks in the dark, dead of night but also bright red MAGA hats and yelled "MAGA country!"
8) they yelled homophobic slurs which they would've only done if they knew who he was and were able to tell who he was in the dark while he was on his phone, etc. How did these (supposedly) complete strangers know he was gay?
9) after the alleged attack, he continues to wear the rope, casually walks into the apartment building of his friend, past two security guards, doesn't mention anything to them about an attack
10) when he finally gets around to calling the cops,
he tells them to turn off their body cams because he didn't want anything recorded. (uh...WTF? You can do that? Why would a person ever want to?)
11) the story keeps changing and now
his manager is claiming that he suddenly remembers he was on the phone with Smollett (why did he wait several days to report this?),
yet both are refusing to turn over their phones to prove it (this claim is easily verifiable without their cooperation, though, and I'm sure the cops will get a warrant soon for either the phones or phone records)
There was also a reporter who tweeted (and then deleted) this earlier today, saying that his sources in the Chicago PD are suggesting it's looking like a hoax. Good thing we have the internet archive:
archive.fo/DnLd6Also
from this CBS story:
With as much footage as they reportedly have, it seems highly suspicious that they don't have anything at all corroborating any part of his story. And, again, his only injury is a small scratch to his cheek?
This also strikes me as odd. Why did Daniels delete the post...unless he has also started to doubt its veracity? *Shrug* Maybe, maybe not. The timing just seems odd to me.
As I said, if the story is true then it's a disgusting tragedy and I hope the fuckers who did it are caught and thrown in jail and they lose the key.
But...this story has all the hallmarks of a bullshit hate crime hoax. I'm not saying it is a hoax. It could very well be totally true. But it's giving off all the sketchy vibes of about a half dozen past very similar stories that all turned out to be complete bullshit, like:
1) The Muslim student who lied about being attacked by MAGA trolls on the subway:
newyork.cbslocal.com/2016/12/14/muslim-teen-false-report-claim/2) The other Muslim student who lied about a man pulling off her hijab and setting it on fire:
www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/midwest/ct-michigan-muslim-student-hijab-threat-hoax-20161221-story.html3) The story of how white supremacists set fire to a church but it turns out one of their own members did it to smear Trump supporters:
www.nytimes.com/2016/12/21/us/mississippi-church-fire.html4) The college student who lied about getting anti-gay, Trump-related mail/messages by faking the whole thing:
news.yahoo.com/chicago-college-student-made-anti-204911391.html...just to cite a few, because I don't have the time nor desire to dig up all the bullshit hate crime hoaxes that have happened since Trump took office.
Again, just to say it louder for everyone in the back, I'm not saying this is definitely a hoax. Again, if it is true, I hope they find the fuckers and lock them up.
I'm just saying that nearly everything about this story, from the sketchy, implausible details to the fact that the story keeps changing, is making my Spidey sense tingle because it is playing out very much like these other hoaxes.
But, I have no idea what is or isn't true at this point. If the other hoaxes (and Covington) has taught us anything, it's that it's best to wait for more information/evidence before passing judgment.