Since Jussie Smollett’s alleged hate crime first made the news people have been commenting on all of the strange elements of the case. Racists walking around Chicago in the middle of the night in winter seemed very strange. MAGA fans who watch Empire and know Jussie Smollett on sight was even harder to believe. But perhaps the strangest elements of the story was that these alleged racists had a pre-made noose that Smollett was still wearing when police arrived more than 40 minutes later.

If you were really attacked by racists who beat you and put a noose around your neck, the first thing you would do when you had the chance is take the noose off. You wouldn’t throw it away if you had the presence of mind to think about holding evidence for the police, but you wouldn’t want that thing around your neck for 40 extra seconds, much less 40 minutes. That’s a long time to sit and talk to your manager, have a drink, settle yourself, think about what happened and still not take off the noose around your neck! Here’s the video:

“There’s bleach on me. They poured bleach on me,” Jussie Smollett told police the night of the alleged attack in Chicago. “Do you want to take it off or anything?” Chicago police officer asks Jussie Smollett about the rope around his neck. https://t.co/4mmKwNVaBb pic.twitter.com/WfsuKc3PrW

— CBS Chicago (@cbschicago) June 24, 2019

In the clip, Jussie’s manager grabbed the noose and said it’s the reason he called the police. One of the officers asked, “Do you want to take it off of anything?”

Smollett replied, “Yeah, I do I just wanted you all to see it.” As he removed the noose he added, “There’s bleach on me. They poured bleach on me.”

At that point, Jussie’s manager noted that police are filming the encounter and Jussie asked them to turn off their body cameras.

No one would have faulted him for taking the noose off his neck if this had been a legitimate hate crime. But this looks more like what it is: a performance. And the bleach is still a mystery. What was that supposed to be about? The best explanation I’ve seen comes from the Daily Show skit where an actor portraying one of the Osundairo brothers says he’s so racist that he wants to turn black people white. Was that was Jussie was going for?

The clip above is just one small part of 70 hours of video related to the case which police released today. In addition to the moment with the noose, police also released video of the Osundairo brothers getting out of a cab at 1:22 am, about 40 minutes before the attack:

Video from inside taxi of Osundairo brother’s on their way to meet Jussie Smollett night of reported attack..according to CPD@cbschicago pic.twitter.com/kYbUcoiwi5

— Charlie De Mar (@CharlieDeMar) June 24, 2019

Finally, here’s a video of one of the brothers, Abel, being arrested at the airport after he returned from a visit to Nigeria:

Video of Abel Osundairo greeting by law enforcement as he gets off a plane at O’Hare.

He is placed in handcuffs and then brought in for questioning.

The brothers would later tell police they were paid to go along with a staged attack on Jussie Smollett. @cbschicago pic.twitter.com/p3xuZK6wlv

— Charlie De Mar (@CharlieDeMar) June 24, 2019

A grand jury indicted Smollett on 16 felony charges for the hoax but the case was later dismissed by State Attorney Kim Foxx’s office. Last week a judge appointed a special prosecutor to look into Foxx’s unusual handling of the case.

There were actually two officers in Smollett’s apartment. The clip above is from one of them. This one below comes from the second officer: