A Black realtor was showing a Black father and his 15-year-old son a Michigan home when they saw police outside the property with their guns drawn.
“I knew once they surrounded the home, they were preparing for a standoff,” the father, Roy Thorne, told CNN’s Don Lemon Friday. “And so my instincts told me we need to get out of here, we need to get to where they can see that we’re not a threat.”
Apparently, a neighbor called the police and said that a suspect who was arrested at the same property a week before had returned to the home. However, the caller was wrong.
Eric Brown, the realtor, was showing the property located in the community of Wyoming to Thorne and his son Samuel. The two had scheduled to view the home the day before, CNN reported.
Despite the three being released from custody without incident, the damage was already done. Wyoming police ordered the trio to come out of the home with their hands up and then handcuffed them. Thorne and Samuel were placed in separate patrol cars while police investigated.
“I was worried,” Thorne said, “but I was just more concerned about getting my son out of that situation and getting us all out of there.”
When asked if he felt they had been racially profiled, Brown said, “In that moment, it certainly felt that way.” He found it difficult to justify the level of force used, describing it as a “tactical” response.
However, the Wyoming Department of Public Safety said it had conducted an internal review and concluded: “race played no role in our officers’ treatment of the individuals, and our officers responded appropriately.”
“While it is unfortunate that innocent individuals were placed in handcuffs, our officers responded reasonably and according to department policy based on the information available to them at the time,” the statement said.
As for 15-year-old Samuel, he’s scared by the situation and told Lemon he felt “confusion and shock and fear … because I had no idea why they were all down there at that time.”
“It went from, ‘Dad, there’s cops outside,’ to ‘come outside with your hands up,’” Samuel said. “That was kind of like, just from zero to 100.”
Wyoming police said that police Chief Kimberly Koster contacted Brown and offered to meet with the three to discuss the incident. But Brown hasn’t decided if that is the thing to do.
“Clearly,” Brown said, “we want some reform and some change here.”
As for Thorne, his message to law enforcement is, “We’re just like you. We occupy the same space. We do the same things. We go to the same places.”
“And if you see a crime, report a crime. But if you see people – Black people, any minority – don’t report people doing normal things,” Thorne said. “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.”
“You could’ve changed my life, changed my son’s life,” he said.
Discover more from Baller Alert
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
