Tyreek Hill: A timeline of Thursday’s events

Tyreek Hill escaped charges from the Johnson County District Attorney on Wednesday. A series of events have altered the narrative Thursday.

What follows is an outline of events which occurred on Thursday, April 26th, 2019 related to an investigation of child abuse involving wide receiver Tyreek Hill and fiancee Crystal Espinal. The couple has a three-year-old son and Espinal is pregnant with twins:

Thursday morning we published an article outlining the details of a statement issued by attorneys representing suspended Kansas City wide receiver Tyreek Hill on his behalf.

Thursday afternoon, at 3:50PM, KCTV5 (a CBS affiliate) reporter Angie Ricono released the following message:

Ricono indicated that the station had given Hill and Espinal until 6 p.m. CT to provide comment before the story aired. They declined.

At 6 p.m. CT KCTV5 ran their story including audio clips from a recording featuring a conversation between Hill and Espinal regarding the investigation of a broken arm suffered by their three-year-old son. The audio featured graphic language, including outlining specific instances of child abuse committed by both parties, an allegation that Hill was the offender who broke the child’s arm, and Hill saying to Espinal should, like their son, “fear me, too, bitch.”

After the conclusion of the report, Ricono took to Twitter to answer questions about the audio. Through the report itself, and her Twitter, we learned that the recording was made by Espinal, and then forwarded to at least one friend as an “insurance policy.” That friend was the source who provided the recording to Ricono. The reporter then published the report after the district attorney decided not to press charges, at the request of the source.

We also learned that the district attorney, prior to yesterday, had no knowledge of the audio recording. Ricono indicated that they received it yesterday:

Prior to the beginning of the first round of the 2019 NFL Draft, the Chiefs indicated to reporters they would not have comment at the time but would later in the evening.

At 11 p.m. CT, after the conclusion of the first round, general manager Brett Veach conducted a press conference in which he issue a statement and took no questions. Veach said Hill was suspended from all team related activities “for the foreseeable future”.

Shortly after 11 p.m. CT,  TMZ reported police were at the home that Hill and Espinal share for “about 20 minutes” on Thursday evening after the release of the audio. There is no report yet about the nature of that visit, only that it was conducted after the audio was released. It was unclear if Hill was in the home at the time.

Regarding the suspension from Kansas City, it is important to note that the team did not release former running back Kareem Hunt until after he was placed on the Commissioner’s Exempt List.

The NFL had no comment after the news of the audio recording was made available.