NEW ORLEANS (AP) — One day after saying they could investigate a video showing apparent abuse of an unconscious LSU fan only if the man filed a complaint, New Orleans police sent out a wanted poster.

It asks the public to identify a white man described as a person of interest in a sexual battery late Jan. 9 — the night Alabama beat LSU, 21-0, in the BCS Championship football game in the Superdome.

However, Police Superintendent Ronal Serpas says police are still investigating whether there was a sexual assault. “It could well be considered a sexual assault. That’s one of the things we’re looking into. That’s one of the reasons we’d like to talk to the people involved,” he said Wednesday.

The video has gone viral on the Internet. It ends with a man in a red Alabama jacket simulating a sex act on a man who is wearing an LSU-purple T-shirt and who had passed out on a restaurant counter.

On Tuesday, police spokeswoman Remi Braden said police could not investigate unless the apparent victim, shown slumped forward on a restaurant counter, filed a complaint. She did not immediately return an e-mail asking why police changed their minds.

The poster of the “person of interest” was sent as an attachment to an e-mail headlined “After Further Review and Investigation, the NOPD is now asking the Public for their Assistance in Identifying the Person of Interest in this Video.”

The poster says the incident occurred around 11:45 p.m. Jan. 9 at the Krystal Burger restaurant on Bourbon Street. It includes three still shots taken from the video and describes the wanted man as about 5-foot-7 to 5-11 tall, white and medium build.

The poster says NOPD’s sex crimes unit was made aware of the video Tuesday. “The video displayed the above male subject committing a sexual battery upon another male subject,” it states. It asks anyone with information to notify Detective Corey M. Lymous at 504-658-5523 or to call Crimestoppers: 504-822-1111 or 877-903-7867.

The first several minutes of the video shows Alabama fans posing with the man, joking, putting empty food containers and an empty cup on his head and back. Then one man pokes his middle fingers at the man’s nose and ear.

The video’s last minute or so shows the same man, wearing shorts, a red jacket and backward baseball cap, exposing his genitals and climbing from a chair onto the counter, where he falls onto his side before crouching over the other man’s head and simulating a sex act.

The University of Alabama released a two-sentence statement saying it would check into the video and “appropriately deal with any student who might have been involved.”

This story was originally posted Jan. 19, 2012.