Police bodycam footage details a 23-year-old black man’s nightmare after stopping at a local bank to cash his paycheck.
Joe Morrow had just completed a 12-hour shift as an “order picker” at a grocery distributor in Hopkins last year when he stopped at a local U.S. Bank branch in Columbia Heights, Minnesota.-
Police cam footage detailed how a routine banking transaction turned into a near arrest that led to Morrow being placed in handcuffs.
Despite Morrow having an active account with the bank and showing his ID, an overzealous bank manager called the cops claiming that the man’s paycheck was fake. However, the Bodycam video showed that the bank manager only called Morrow’s employer for verification after officers removed him.
Advocates say what happened to Joe Morrow raises questions about implicit bias and is part of a national phenomenon that more Black Americans are experiencing and documenting in recent years with the social media hashtag “Banking while Black.”
The local news outlet, 5 INVESTIGATES obtained 45 minutes of footage from the police body-worn cameras that was recorded by the two officers who responded to the call for “a possible fraudulent check” and Morrow, who was refusing to leave the premises.
In the first minute of the video, Morrow can be heard asserting his innocence to the officers while sitting in the bank manager’s office.
“I work there, bro. And I’m going to report you too, bro. This is racial,” Morrow said to JohnAskwith, the bank’s manager.
Shortly after a second officer arrived, police say Askwith requested that they move Morrow to an adjacent office.
The video shows that Officers placed Morrow in handcuffs after getting up from his chair.
In the incident report, one of the officers wrote that Morrow “flexed at John (Askwith) in a threatening manner,” even as the video shows he did not.
“I didn’t threaten him. I got up, like, I’m mad,” Morrow explained. “The guy told the officer, can you get him out of my office? He might take something on my desk… that’s when I got super mad. I’m going to touch something on your desk?” Morrow said.
U.S. Bank denied Morrow’s allegations of racial profiling but quietly agreed to a confidential settlement two weeks after 5 INVESTIGATES started inquiring about the incident.
