Dez Bryant Held at Gunpoint and Handcuffed in Front of His Daughters — Then Cited for Assault

The video is the story, and it needs no narrator. Three men are flat on the pavement of a restaurant parking lot in Southlake, Texas, hands behind their backs, while a police officer stands over them holding a rifle. One of the men on the ground, lying on his stomach in handcuffs, is Dez Bryant — and in the footage, he is yelling the same thing over and over: "He threatened me."

It happened Sunday outside Chiloso Mexican Bistro on East Southlake Boulevard, where Bryant had gone to eat. As the officers worked, Bryant's girlfriend arrived with his two daughters, who watched their father on the ground with a gun pointed in his direction, Sports Illustrated reported. Nobody was injured, according to Sports Illustrated. When it was over, the other two men were released. Bryant — the three-time Pro Bowl wide receiver who starred for the Dallas Cowboys from 2010 to 2017 — was issued a citation for assault by contact and allowed to leave.

"I was really more so concerned about my children, you know, looking at their dad, you know, being on the ground with a gun pointed at me," Bryant told OutKick.

What Bryant says happened

Everything about how the afternoon started comes from Bryant himself, and it is important to say that plainly: so far, his is the only account of the argument on the record.

Bryant told OutKick that two drivers cut him off and drove recklessly on the way to the restaurant, where all of them ended up. In the parking lot, he says, he confronted one of the men. "He get out of the car, he talking crazy," Bryant said. "I get out of the car, I'm talking my mess. And he go to threatening me."

Bryant says the man insinuated he would shoot him — "he'll shoot me or whatever" — but never showed a gun. "I told him, I said, 'Hey, man, you pull that gun, I'm telling you right now, you better use it because if you don't, I'm going to do something to you,'" Bryant said.

What the man pulled out, Bryant says, was a phone, to record him. Bryant says he knocked the phone out of the man's hand — the contact the citation is built on. The man said he was going to call the police. Bryant says he told him to go ahead: "Call them. You're threatening me, so it's all good. I have the right to protect myself."

What the record shows

The paper trail is thinner than the video, but it is real. Fox News reported the citation itself — reviewed by OutKick, it lists the offense as "Assault by Contact" at 2251 E. Southlake Blvd. — the restaurant's address — and marks "Arrest: No." Assault by contact is a Class C misdemeanor in Texas, a fine-only offense carrying at most a $500 fine, Black Sports Online reported. Bryant must appear at Southlake Municipal Court on or before November 20 at 5 p.m. The video itself was provided to OutKick by Bryant and released Monday, according to Fox News.

Bryant says officers briefly investigated at the scene and sided with the two young men, and that one officer told him to "be the bigger person." His answer: "I asked him, 'How can I be the bigger person?' I told him I got every right to feel how I'm feeling."

What has not been said

The Southlake Police Department has not commented publicly. A request for comment from the department on Monday was not returned, the New York Post reported, and no police account of the incident — why officers drew a weapon, why Bryant alone was cited — has been offered. The two other men have not told their side publicly either.

Bryant is asking for the rest of the record to be produced: he wants the department to review surveillance footage and interview witnesses, and he is calling for a full investigation. "Treat everybody fair. Treat everybody fair. Treat everybody with respect," he said. "Do your due diligence on what's actually going on."

The timing does the rest. The video landed Monday, hours before Bryant's old team — the Cowboys, the franchise he spent eight seasons starring for — plays on Monday Night Football. By kickoff, the whole league will have seen its former star on the pavement. What it has not seen, yet, is anybody's version of that afternoon but his.

The Sports Desk's read: between now and November 20, when Bryant answers a fine-only citation in Southlake Municipal Court, the only full account of that parking lot on the public record belongs to the man who was handcuffed in it. The department whose officer aimed a rifle his way has not offered one. That silence — not the $500 ticket — is the part of this story that is still being written. — The Sports Desk