Xan wrote:
But... Suppose you were in America and vandalized a toilet. (Yes, that's a bad thing to do.) And then the security guard of the gas station came up and drew his gun and said he needed hundreds of dollars for the repairs, right then and there. Wouldn't that be considered armed robbery? Maybe it's standard procedure in Brazil. But I do see that the swimmers might have legitimately considered themselves to have been robbed.
If that's what he originally said had happened, people would probably be more sympathetic. But here's what he actually said:
"We got pulled over, in the taxi, and these guys came out with a badge, a police badge, no lights, no nothing just a police badge and they pulled us over," Lochte said. "They pulled out their guns, they told the other swimmers to get down on the ground — they got down on the ground. I refused, I was like we didn't do anything wrong, so — I'm not getting down on the ground.
"And then the guy pulled out his gun, he cocked it, put it to my forehead and he said, 'Get down,' and I put my hands up, I was like 'whatever.' He took our money, he took my wallet — he left my cell phone, he left my credentials."
He claimed to have been pulled over and robbed by men posing as cops, specifically said he had done nothing wrong, lied about his wallet being taken, and even embellished it with a machismo gun-to-the-head moment. Basically, he falsified every detail to make himself look better.
