Miami Dolphins wide receiver Jarvis Landry will not face charges stemming from an August investigation into alleged domestic battery, per the Broward County State Attorney’s Office, which announced it would be looking into possible battery charges against Landry early last month. The investigation stemmed from an alleged incident that occurred in April—although Landry’s girlfriend strongly denied that he’d ever hit her.
Landry released a statement on the news this afternoon (via the Sun Sentinel):
“I am very thankful that this matter is over and my family and I can put this behind us now,” he said. “I greatly respect and appreciate the Broward County State Attorney’s Office for their hard work and thankful that they were able to come to a conclusion that reaffirms the true facts that no crime was committed.
“My daughter’s mother and I will continue to co-parent to raise our child in a happy and healthy environment. I would like to thank my family and friends for their continued support throughout this process.”
The full (redacted) incident report from April offers very little detail, aside from listing “hands, fist, feet, teeth” as a weapon. Per the closeout report, which can be read below, Landry’s girlfriend went to his apartment to pick up their infant daughter. Once he had brought the baby down to her car, she asked him to stay there and watch their daughter for a few minutes while she went inside to go get some of her belongings. Then, according to what she told police at the time, Landry allegedly became “verbally aggressive” and told her that he did not want her in his apartment before pushing her backward into the car, “causing her to strike her back against the top of the vehicle.” She called her mother and sister, and the latter called the police. When they arrived, Landry’s girlfriend refused to provide them with a sworn statement and said that she did not want Landry arrested or prosecuted. Landry told police that he had not wanted his girlfriend to go inside the apartment and had tried to block her from leaving her car, but denied pushing her or using any physical force. Landry’s girlfriend did not seek medical assistance, and police did not make an arrest.
The report notes that any recording of the 911 call itself has been lost, as the sheriff’s office mistakenly failed to forward a copy to the State Attorney’s Office—standard practice for the county’s domestic-violence calls. But the State Attorney’s Office was able to retrieve a transcription of the call, which showed that the woman’s sister had told the dispatcher that Landry’s girlfriend had called her in tears and asked her to call the police on her behalf.
Landry’s girlfriend gave a sworn statement to an assistant state attorney five months later. She said that she believed she had given the police an accurate description of what she experienced at the time, but that she had generally been very emotional then—having given birth to her daughter a few months prior—and felt she had “exaggerated the whole situation” because of her emotional state. She said that Landry had grown frustrated when he saw her calling her mother and had reached for her phone in such a way that his hand “touched her chest” and caused her to fall backwards and hit the car, but claimed that he had not intentionally pushed her.
The assistant state attorney then showed Landry’s girlfriend a brief clip of surveillance video from the apartment complex. While the State Attorney’s Office had felt that the video showed Landry slapping his girlfriend, she adamantly denied that this was so, and said that the video only showed him reaching for her phone and tossing it into the car. After slowing the video down and lightening the images, the office agreed with her claims.
“When watched carefully, the video is consistent with the victim’s account of the incident that the defendant did not slap her, but instead grabbed her phone and threw it back into the car,” the report reads. “Although the video very clearly shows the defendant push the victim backwards into the vehicle, the victim remains adamant that he was trying to reach for her phone, not touch or push her and that this was an unintentional act.”
The assistant state attorney concluded the report by recommending that the charges be declined.