Oscars Slap Producer Says Police Offered To Arrest Smith

“They said, you know, this is a battery, it was a word they were using at the time,” Packer said in a clip released by ABC News on Thursday night in an interview with Good Morning America.  “They said we were going to pick him up. We are prepared. We are ready to pick him up immediately. You can make accusations, we can arrest him. They showed the options.”
But Packer said Rock was “very dismissive” of the idea.
“He was saying, ‘No, no, no, I’m fine,'” Packer said.  And at the point where I said, ‘Rock, let them finish.’  LAPD officials completed the presentation of his options and said, “Would you like us to take some action?”  And he said no. “
The LAPD said in a statement after Sunday’s ceremony that it was aware of the incident and that Rock refused to report it to police.  The department declined to comment on Packer’s interview on Thursday, a larger version of which will air Friday morning.
The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences met Wednesday to initiate disciplinary proceedings against Smith for breaches of the team’s standards of conduct.  Smith could be suspended, expelled or otherwise sanctioned.
The academy said in a statement that “Mr. Smith’s actions at the 94th Oscars were a deeply shocking, traumatic event to be seen in person and on television.”
Without giving details, the academy said Smith was asked to leave the ceremony at the Dolby Theater, but refused to do so.
Smith took to the stage from his seat in the front row and slapped Rock after a joke Rock made about Smith’s wife, Jada Pinkett Smith, when he was on stage to present the Oscar for Best Documentary.
On Monday, Smith apologized to Rock, the academy and the audience, saying “I was off the line and I was wrong.”
The academy said Smith has the opportunity to defend himself in writing before meeting again on April 18.
Rock spoke publicly about the incident for the first time, but only briefly, at the start of a stand-up show Wednesday night in Boston, where he was greeted by a standing ovation.  He said: “I am still working on what happened.”