Detectives pored over hundreds of hours of surveillance footage after the “Empire” star said he was attacked on a Chicago street by two men yelling racist and homophobic slurs.
The Chicago police said on Wednesday that they were looking for “potential persons of interest” spotted on a surveillance camera as part of their investigation into the attack on the “Empire” star Jussie Smollett, who said he had been assaulted by two people yelling racial and homophobic slurs.
The statement came after detectives reviewed hundreds of hours of video over a day and a half as they tried to solve what they were calling a possible hate crime. A police spokesman, Howard Ludwig, said that the department had also received calls on its tip line, but that it was too early to tell whether they were credible.
Smollett, who is black and gay, and an outspoken activist on social issues, told the police that around 2 a.m. Tuesday, he had been attacked on the street while heading back from a late meal by two masked men directing racist and homophobic slurs at him. The men also put a rope around his neck, he told the police, and poured a chemical substance on him.
Anthony Guglielmi, a police spokesman, told The Chicago Sun-Times that Smollett had been hesitant to call the police because of his status as a public figure, and that his manager was the one who made the call 40 minutes after the incident.
