Falcons QB Says He's Been Exonerated in Water Bottle Incident

Vick: "I had earrings in it, and I had jewelry in it."

Police: "That's the first we've heard of that."

Then: A day after the incident, Falcons general manager Rich McKay described a "stressful" meeting with Vick: "I met with Michael this morning, the coach did, we clearly expressed our displeasure, had a pretty frank discussion about it."

Now: McKay said Thursday he has never spoken to Vick about the contents of the water bottle. Vick said new head coach Bobby Petrino "brushed it off" when the water bottle incident was discussed the day after the incident.

Flowery Branch --- In his first public comments on the subject, Falcons quarterback Michael Vick said Thursday the hidden compartment in a water bottle he tried to take through Miami airport security contained jewelry. His account was disputed by the police department that investigated the Jan. 17 incident.

"I had earrings in it, and I had jewelry in it," Vick said of the 20-ounce Aquafina bottle, which was red-flagged at the security checkpoint because liquid containers of that size can't be carried through. "They took the bottle. I don't know what they did with the bottle. I guess they were trying to, I don't want to say frame me, but at the same time look at what I had to go through."

"That's the first we've heard of that," Detective Nelda Fonticella, spokeswoman for the Miami-Dade Police Department, said when asked if Vick was carrying jewelry in the bottle. "If he has any kind of problem with the way things were handled, then he needs to talk to internal affairs."

There is no mention of jewelry in the police report, the statements provided by both security agents involved, in the Florida state attorney's case memo or any of the other related documents obtained by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Attempts to reach Vick to ask about the police response to his comments were unsuccessful.

The Jan. 17 incident at Miami International Airport created a storm of criticism around Vick, the Falcons star and the NFL's highest paid player.

Vick was flying from Miami to Atlanta when airport security screeners stopped him for trying to carry the water bottle through the checkpoint. Initially reluctant to surrender the bottle, Vick threw it in a garbage can, according to authorities. It was retrieved by a suspicious security agent and the hidden compartment was discovered. Police were called and reported a "dark particulate" and odor of marijuana. Five days later the state attorney's office said it would not charge Vick because no drugs were found.

In a Thursday news conference, Vick denied he had been carrying anything illegal.

"Nobody came out and said there were earrings inside the bottle, jewelry in the bottle. I was cordial. I gave the bottle to the [Transportation Security Agency lady and said, 'If you want to keep it you can keep it.' The only reason I went through all that was because there was water at the top of [the bottle]. It was a stash box for my jewelry. That's what I told everybody but that wasn't written.

"Everything else was written about the smell and all that. I sat in the airport for another hour and 30 minutes, so if there was something they thought was wrong then they could have come and got me and we could have handled the situation accordingly right on the spot."

Vick's account Thursday of the Falcons' reaction to the incident contradicted previous versions.

Vick said new Falcons head coach Bobby Petrino "brushed it off" when the water bottle incident was discussed the next day.

But Falcons president and general manager Rich McKay, who was at that meeting, described it at the time as "stressful," saying: "I met with Michael this morning, the coach did, we clearly expressed our displeasure, had a pretty frank discussion about it."

Vick did not say there was jewelry in the bottle until Thursday. McKay, who addressed the incident the next day, never said there was jewelry in the hidden compartment.

In fact, McKay said Thursday he has never spoken to Vick about the contents of the bottle.

Vick didn't say what happened to the jewelry in the bottle.

The Metro-Dade Crime Lab tested the particulate and reported "no drug found." Asked for a copy of the airport surveillance video of the incident under the state's public records law, the Miami-Dade Police Department said its copy of the video had been destroyed. TSA would not release its copy of the video, citing national security concerns.

Though Vick spoke Thursday of not having his side of the bottle story told, he refused multiple interview requests by the AJC over the past two months, including as recently as last week.

"There really wasn't anything I could say," Vick said. "When it first happened, nobody waited for the results to come back. Everybody just said this, wrote that. 'He's a thug. He does this. He does that. He's not right. He shouldn't be in Atlanta.'

"How do you think that made me feel? That was tough on me. That was tough on my family and friends because we knew those accusations weren't right. I said to myself, why even say anything. At the time people were not going to believe me. I just wanted to wait for the results to come back and let the smoke clear and get my head together and enjoy my offseason. It's over. I was cleared, and I was happy about that.

"I'm not stupid. I'm not crazy. I would never do anything like that."

The incident drew further scrutiny to Vick, who last season threw for a career-high 20 touchdowns and set a rushing record for quarterbacks but failed to get the Falcons to the playoffs for the second straight season. He had drawn unwanted attention two months earlier when he made an obscene gesture to fans after a November loss at the Georgia Dome. The NFL slapped Vick with a $20,000 fine.

Vick said he laughed at television comics' jokes about the bottle incident. The support he received, especially from Petrino, helped him get through some of the backlash, he said.

"It's funny because that was the first day I had to meet him and I had to go through that with him," said Vick, who was catching a flight to meet Petrino when the incident occurred. "He brushed it off. He talked about my family and football and what he thought I needed to do. That was uplifting for me because he didn't harp about what I was going through."

Vick also said the public reaction has been far more positive than negative.

"It has me under the microscope a little bit more, even though I was cleared of everything," Vick said. "People treat me the same way. It's almost like people love me even more. They embrace me even more because I went through a situation where I didn't do anything wrong."

Staff writer D. Orlando Ledbetter contributed to this article.

News stories provided by third parties are not edited by "Site Publication" staff. For suggestions and comments, please click the Contact link at the bottom of this page.