White folks just don’t get it … do they? Beverly Hills cops in an attempt to justify the unnecessary humiliation of a Black Versace designer being detained and harassed for jay-walking near Beverly Hills’ posh Rodeo Drive.
Police released footage -Which is painful to watch – to paint a fuller picture of their interaction with a Salehe Bembury, a black Versace designer and executive who accused them of racial profiling for an incident earlier this month.
During the interaction, officers refer to Bembury as “sir” and ask him if there is anything they can do to make him more comfortable as they perform a search of his person. The tone is patronizing and condescending as officers deliberately embarrass the casually dressed executive after he tells them in a confused but polite manner that he is “uncomfortable” with the treatment. The man, who later went viral after sharing footage of his own on social media, says that their presence alone is making him uncomfortable and asks for permission to retrieve his phone.
After taking the device out of his pocket, he begins filming.
“OK, I am in Beverly Hills right now, and I am getting f***ing searched for shopping at the store I work for,” he says.
“Now what you are doing is you are making it completely different to what we just talked about. You are making a completely different narrative,” an officer says.
Bembury continues to explain that he’s being racially profiled before the officers eventually let him go as they had no reason to search him in the first place. He later shared his video of the incident on Instagram with the caption, “Beverly Hills while Black. I’m OK, my spirit is not.”
In response, the Beverly Hills Police Department released a statement along with the body camera footage.
Watch video here
In a statement, Beverly Hills cops said, “Mr. Bembury consented to a search, was cleared of any outstanding warrants and released with a warning. No citation was issued.” Did he have a choice?
Black people in California are stopped by police officers more frequently than people of other races, according to statistics from eight law enforcement agencies in the state. In both Los Angeles and San Francisco, black residents accounted for more than a quarter of all those stopped by police in the second half of 2018 despite making up less than 10 percent of either city’s population.
Interactions between police officers and black Americans have been under renewed national scrutiny since George Floyd, a black man accused of using a counterfeit $20 bill, died while being arrested by a white police officer in Minneapolis in May. Footage of the incident sparked nationwide protests against systemic racism and police brutality, as well as calls to defund the police.
(Edited by Carlin Becker and Matthew Hall)
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