Johnny Depp Domestic Violence Claim to Be Investigated by LAPD

Police spokesman says department will investigate after Amber Heard filed a statement with law enforcement

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The Los Angeles Police Department will investigate domestic violence allegations made against Johnny Depp  by his estranged wife Amber Heard, a department spokesman told TheWrap on Tuesday.

On Tuesday, Heard’s legal team issued a statement to the media saying that the actress had filed a statement with the department about alleged abuse. An LAPD spokesman said that the department will investigate, as they do with all allegations.

The spokesman was unable to say whether police have already begun investigating based on Heard’s statement.

Heard, who filed for divorce from the actor on May 23, was granted a temporary restraining order on Friday. The actress alleged that Depp had been abusive on multiple occasions, notably on May 21 at the couple’s Los Angeles residence. Heard submitted multiple photos as evidence of the alleged abuse, including photos of herself appearing to show marks around her eye.

The police spokesman told TheWrap that Heard provided no evidence to police who responded to the residence on May 21, and that the reporting party did not insist on a police report.

In the statement issued Tuesday, Heard’s legal team said that the actress initially refused to give police an official statement to police in order to keep the the divorce proceedings out of the media, but Depp’s team “forced” her to take action.

“Johnny’s team has forced Amber to give a statement to the LAPD to set the record straight as to the true facts, as she cannot continue to leave herself open to the vicious false and malicious allegations that have infected the media,” Heard’s lawyers Samantha F. Spector and Joseph P. Koenig said. “Amber has suffered through years of physical and psychological abuse at the hands of Johnny.”

Over the weekend, comedian and Depp friend Doug Stanhope published a guest column on TheWrap with his point of view of the situation. He wrote that Depp was being falsely accused of physical abuse, and and being manipulated by Heard, who was “threatening to lie about him publicly in any and every possible duplicitous way if he didn’t agree to her terms.”

Stanhope’s claims led Heard’s lawyer, Peter Sample, to issue a denial. Sample called Stanhope’s allegations “absolutely and unequivocally false.”

Depp and Heard married in February 2015. In a statement issued following Heard’s divorce filing, a spokesperson for the actor said that Depp “will not respond to any of the salacious false stories” about his personal life.

“Given the brevity of this marriage and the most recent and tragic loss of his mother, Johnny will not respond to any of the salacious false stories, gossip, misinformation and lies about his personal life,” his rep said. “Hopefully the dissolution of this short marriage will be resolved quickly.”

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