NYPD: Harry and Meghan’s disputed car chase claims don’t warrant ‘further investigation’

Prince Harry and Meghan Markle won’t be able to count on an investigation by the New York City Police Department to back up their claims that they endured a “near-catastrophic,” two-hour car chase at the hands of “highly aggressive” paparazzi who caused “multiple near collisions” with other drivers, pedestrians and two police officers.

The NYPD has concluded that the incident warrants “no further investigation,” the New York Times has reported. This statement indicates that police don’t believe anyone — including the paparazzi or members of the royal couple’s security team — broke any laws.

As the New York Times said in a report on Friday, early reports about the May 16 incident repeated claims from the couple’s publicist and other allies that the chase was “relentless,” “near fatal” and supposedly involved the couple’s SUV being followed by other SUVS with black-out windows and driving at speeds of up to 80 mph.

However, “as more details emerged, from the accounts of police and a taxi driver who was briefly involved, the facts began to diverge from (the Sussexes’) account,” the New York Times said. Tom Buda, the head of the security firm hired by the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, acknowledged that they were not involved in a “high-speed pursuit,” according to the London Times.

Police officials have acknowledged that the situation became “chaotic,” as the couple were followed by “numerous photographers that made their transport challenging.” But police downplayed the idea that other motorists and people on the streets were ever in jeopardy. They said the couple arrived safely at their destination with “no reported collisions, summonses, injuries or arrests.”

The controversy over the car chase erupted after the Sussexes’ spokesperson put out an alarming statement that raised the specter of the 1997 car crash that killed Harry’s mother, Princess Diana, who was being pursued by paparazzi in Paris. The pursuit began when Harry, Meghan, and her mother, Doria Ragland, left the Ziegfeld Ballroom in Midtown Manhattan shortly before 10 p.m. on May 16. The trio were at the Ballroom to attend the Women of Vision Awards, at which Meghan was among the honorees. Images of them leaving the theater show a crowd of photographers trying to get shots of them as they got into their SUV.

In the days since the incident, the Sussexes have found themselves on the defensive, with New York media personalities and others expressing doubt about whether the couple’s account of a two-hour car chase is even possible in the usually congested streets of Manhattan. Critics accused the high-profile couple of deliberately exaggerating the danger they were in to garner publicity or sympathy.

Ashley Hansen, a spokesperson for the couple, vehemently dismissed the idea that the couple encouraged the paparazzi pursuit as some kind of PR stunt. She told the New York Times: “Respectfully, considering the duke’s family history, one would have to think nothing of the couple or anybody associated with them to believe this was any sort of PR stunt. Quite frankly, I think that’s abhorrent.”

Gayle King, the CBS Mornings co-host who is friends of the Sussexes, also said it was “troubling” that people are “downplaying” what Harry and Meghan experienced. “I think it was a very unfortunate incident,” King told Page Six Saturday. “It’s troubling to me that anybody would try to downplay what that would mean to them. That’s very troubling to me.”

But King didn’t dispute the official account that’s emerging and agreed “everybody can have all their opinions.” She said, “I always go back to, ‘How did they feel in that moment?”

Page Six cited law enforcement sources who explained why the couple’s security team didn’t just drive them back to their hotel from the Ziegfeld Ballroom. The reason is that the couple weren’t staying at a hotel, but at a friend’s home on the Upper East Side, because they were “too cheap” to pay the full price for a room, a law enforcement source told Page Six. Harry and Meghan allegedly wanted to stay at the Carlyle — a luxury hotel that was a favorite of the late Princess Diana and where they had stayed before.

With concerns about not revealing their friend’s address, the couple’s security team drove them around for about an hour, trying to shake off the paparazzi, the New York Times and other outlets reported.

“They should have just gotten a hotel for the safety of everyone. Instead, they were cheap and wanted a free place to stay,” a law enforcement source told Page Six.

“If they had just paid up and got a hotel in the first place, this supposed ‘dangerous’ paparazzi chase around town would never have happened,” the source also said. “They would have been driven back to the Carlyle, been photographed going inside and that would have been the end of it.”

Chris Sanchez, a member of the couple’s security detail, told CNN that there “were about a dozen vehicles, cars, scooters and bicycles” pursuing Harry and Meghan after they left the ballroom. He said the paparazzi jumped curbs and passed red lights several times during the incident.

But celebrity photo agency Backgrid said its four freelance photographers, who tracked the couple in cars and on a bicycle, behaved legally and professionally as they covered the couple’s “newsworthy” visit to New York City. Backgrid also said that one of the four SUVs in the couple’s security escort drove in a manner “that could be perceived as reckless.” The agency said it has video showing the SUV being pulled over by the police and said its photographers witnessed “no near-collisions or near-crashes during this incident.”

The German tabloid Das Bild published video over the weekend that showed one of the SUVs belonging to Harry and Meghan’s security team blocking a street, prompting a NYPD patrol officer to approach the driver to ask him to move. Das Bild also reported that the officer didn’t seem to regard the photographers on the scene being a danger or acting illegally.