The last few years have seen a rise of incidents where black people have had the police called on them for unclear reasons.
Whether it’s a family trying to enjoy a meal at Subway, a child correcting his mistake after delivering newspapers to the wrong house, or a man listening to a Yoga CD in his car, the common thread was that none of them were breaking the law, yet someone saw fit to call the police anyway.
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For those who experienced this, there didn’t seem to be any other explanation besides racial profiling. And one Ohio man believes that what happened to him had similar motivations behind it.
Paul McCowns of Cleveland had recently started a new job.
He told Cleveland19 that after about three weeks at an electric company, he received his first paycheck.
So, he went to a Huntington branch in nearby Brooklyn to cash it. So far, it seems simple enough.
Once he got there, he was asked for two forms of ID.
This might have ended the transaction right there for those who aren’t familiar with the bank’s policies, but McCowns was ready.
He knew he wasn’t a Huntington client, so neither this requirement nor the part where he need to provide a fingerprint were unusual to him. So he showed them his driver’s license and social security card.
However, the situation started to get more complicated when the tellers examined his check.
They were reportedly stared at the computer screen for a time and apparently saw something unusual about the check before they tried to call McCown’s employer.
Unfortunately, this person was apparently unavailable because they called multiple times with no answer.
With that, they handed the check back to McCown and told him they couldn’t cash it. So he left the bank and got into his truck.
However, that was about as far as he would get.
Soon after he entered the vehicle, a police car pulled up and McCown was ordered out of his truck.
Unbeknownst to McCown, one of the bank employees had called 911 on him. According to Cleveland19 , the employee told the dispatcher, “He’s trying to cash a check and the check is fradulent. It does not match our records.”
It’s unclear what records the bank would have considering McCown was not a Huntington customer, but he was handcuffed and put in the back of the cruiser.
However, police were able to get in touch with McCown’s employer minutes after the arrest.
As McCown recounted, the employer said, “Yes he works for me. He just started and yes, my payroll company does pay him that much.” Police would later confirm that no fraud had taken place.
He would end up cashing the check at another Huntington branch without issue.
McCown has come away from the incident believing that employees at the first branch racially profiled him.
A representative from Huntington has since issued an apology and said that the check should have been verified with the employer before anybody called the police.
As to why this happened, they said that the branch’s employees were being “hyper vigilant” because that location has experienced 11 cases of fraud within the past three months.
They also said that they’ve attempted to reach McCown directly, but he is not returning their calls.
h/t: Cleveland19
