People are outraged after a Black man viewing a house for sale in Michigan was held by police at gunpoint and handcuffed, along with his teen son and his realtor, because somebody falsely reported them as intruders.
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Roy Thorne and his 15-year-old son, Samuel, were touring a home in Wyoming, Michigan, in broad daylight along with his realtor friend, Eric Brown.
After they went inside, a neighbor allegedly called the police to report a break-in. More specifically, they called and claimed that an intruder who had previously been arrested for breaking into the property had returned, even going so far as to claim that person’s black Mercedes was parked out front, which it was not.
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At least five police cars showed up in response to the call and, apparently not bothering to check the make of the vehicles parked out front, police surrounded the house, at least two drew their weapons, and ordered the trio to come outside.
They immediately did as the officers asked, and soon found themselves handcuffed and put into three different squad cars. Brown was eventually able to get an officer to take a look at his real estate license and explain the situation.
Fortunately, the immediate danger ended there, and the police uncuffed the men and teenager. But the fact that this happened at all when they had done absolutely nothing wrong left all three shaken.
“I went from being afraid for my life to shellshocked to ‘this is not right’ to now slightly angry,” Brown told NBC News. “I felt definitely guilty of breaking into this house. And I had the keys to it.”
On the police bodycam footage, the officers seem to admit that someone messed up and that neither car out front matched the one from the July break-in.
Thorne also said that one officer went over to berate the white couple that had called the cops in the first place, and apologized to the men and teen several times for what happened.
But still, he felt none of this should have happened in the first place — and wouldn’t have if they were white, as the cops hadn’t been called during any of the several dozen previous showings of the house.
There was also the question of whether the police took such extreme measures on such little information because all three males are Black, though the Wyoming police called the way the officers handled the situation “standard procedure,” and concluded after an internal investigation that “race played no role” in the officers’ response.
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But whether that is accurate or not, the incident caused frustration — if no surprise — online.
Roy Thorne, left, w/ his 15 y/o son & realtor Eric Brown.
All 3 were held at gun point till later handcuffed & arrested by Wyoming, Michigan, police officers while touring a home!
Trying to buy a house while black. Trying to sell a house while black. Being a son while black!
pic.twitter.com/ef0Q7dYIfE
— StanceGrounded (@_SJPeace_) August 8, 2021
Just pointing out that this took place in Wyoming, a suburb of Grand Rapids, a redlined city where the cops and many residents are just as racist as the ones in this story. https://t.co/gItXI7aoxa
— alwaysthesea
(@alwaysthesea) August 9, 2021
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Thone told CNN “if you see a crime, report a crime. But if you see people — Black people, any minority — don’t report people doing normal things. You do that, you don’t realize that you can change their life or have their life taken, just you making a phone call. In this instance, it could have been three.”
*First Published: August 13, 2021, 6:31 am
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