Surprise! Nearly everything you've been told about the Carlos Hyde situation is wrong, according to Columbus Police.
Sgt. Rich Weiner, the public information officer for the Columbus Police Department, told 610 WTVN that the reporting has "been reckless up to this point," going on to say, "Everybody seems to have a source and they're going with it. They think that whatever their source is telling them is gospel."
"There's more information that's not true than is true from the reports," Weiner said.
Weiner is referring to conflicting reports from Yahoo! Sportrs and Columbus's NBC4. A report from Charles Robinson of Yahoo! Sports stated Hyde did not strike the alleged victim and that surveillance video from the club would exonerate Hyde. NBC4's Mindy Drayer reported that she had seen the video and that Hyde did, in fact, strike the alleged victim. Notwithstanding her weird diagram, the report contradicted what the typically reliable Robinson had reported a day earlier, and indeed information we received from a source at Big Ten Media Days in Chicago on Wednesday.
The spokesman also disputed reports of the victim getting knocked out.
We spoke with a CPD source very close to the situation today and were told that Hyde appears to have slapped her "pretty good" but the victim did not tell officers that she hit or tried to hit Hyde first. The victim is currently out of town and has not spoken to police. There's also the problem of the video not matching the statement she gave to the officers taking the report, which omitted details of her attempting to strike Hyde.
Our source said that if she does not talk to police, the case will likely be dropped, adding, "These things happen so often with normal people that we typically don't charge anyone if the victim does not cooperate."
If the victim does speak to police, both she and Hyde could be looking at misdemeanor assault charges. Assault charges can be filed for cause or attempt to cause physical harm to another.
More as this develops.
