Sprinter Sha’Carri Richardson has addressed her recent domestic violence arrest in a video on social media and issued an apology to her boyfriend Christian Coleman.
Richardson posted a video on her Instagram account Monday night in which she said she put herself in a “compromised situation”. She issued a written apology to Coleman on Tuesday morning.
“I love him & to him I can’t apologize enough,” the reigning 100-meter world champion wrote in all capital letters on Instagram, adding that her apology “should be just as loud” as her “actions”.
“To Christian I love you & I am so sorry,” she wrote.
Richardson was arrested on July 27 on a fourth-degree domestic violence offence for allegedly assaulting Coleman at the Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. She was booked into South Correctional Entity in Des Moines, Washington, for more than 18 hours.
Her arrest was days before she ran the 100 metres at the US championships in Eugene, Oregon.
In the video, Richardson said she’s practising “self-reflection” and refuses “to run away but face everything that comes to me head on”.
According to the police report, an officer at the airport was notified by a Transportation Security Administration supervisor of a disturbance between Richardson and her boyfriend, Coleman, the 2019 world 100-metre champion.
The officer reviewed camera footage and observed Richardson reach out with her left arm and grab Coleman’s backpack and yank it away. Richardson then appeared to get in Coleman’s way, with Coleman trying to step around her. Coleman was shoved into a wall.
Later in the report, it said Richardson appeared to throw an item at Coleman, with the TSA indicating it may have been headphones.
The officer said in the report: “I was told Coleman did not want to participate any further in the investigation and declined to be a victim.”
A message was left with Coleman from The Associated Press.
Richardson wrote that Coleman “came into my life & gave me more than a relationship but a greater understanding of unconditional love from what I’ve experienced in my past”.
She won the 100 at the 2023 world championships in Budapest and finished with the silver at the Paris Games last summer. She also helped the 4×100 relay team to an Olympic gold.
She didn’t compete during the Tokyo Olympics in 2021, following a positive marijuana test at the US Olympic trials.
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