Flash - Flex 3: Preventing Keyboard Events From Reaching A Sprite?

I'm working on a Flex 3 app, implemented in Actionscript 3 and MXML, that includes an embedded video player, which is essentially a black box--I load it as a SWF from another site on demand, and I don't have access to its source code. It does, however, inherit from Sprite.The problem is that, when focus is on the Flash app, the video player is somehow receiving and processing keyboard events, even when the player itself isn't in focus.So when users are typing text elsewhere in the GUI, if they hit the space bar, the video pauses.

I've tried intercepting key events in the Sprite's parent, and setting tabEnabled = false, tabChildren = false, and buttonMode = false on the Sprite, but nothing seems to work. It's as if the Sprite is getting keystrokes through an alternate Event path.how I can prevent the player from receiving keyboard events or input events entirely? It's fine with me if no input events reach the player, since I've implemented my own,separate video controls.