KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Royce West, the attorney and Texas state senator representing Chiefs wide receiver Rashee Rice, stepped in front of a collection of microphones at 1:34 p.m. Thursday.

By 1:36 p.m., he’d cleared up, and stunningly so, I might add, the most pressing question about a multi-vehicle crash that resulted from an apparent race down a Dallas expressway.

Was Rice, his client, driving one of the high-speed vehicles that ignited the crash and injured at least four people?

“During the interview (with police),” West said, “Mr. Rice acknowledged that he was driving the Lamborghini.”

For five days, the uncertainty of that answer, even if slight, has been about the only thing preventing some of us 500 miles away from weighing in more heavily on a terrifying scene.

West removed that uncertainty and thanked the reporter for allowing him the opportunity to do so. It is a bit stunning to hear a criminal defense lawyer remove the only public doubt about his client’s involvement.

That’s not just my thought but one offered by other criminal defense lawyers that The Kansas City Star’s Jesse Newell and I contacted in the aftermath of a news conference that provided real news.

On the other hand, another attorney said, it perhaps offers a peek into the case and what other evidence might have preceded the admission.

We’ll see.

That’s still the unknown.

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