A Black Michigan woman who was slapped with a $385 fine after her White neighbor called the police on her for talking too loudly on the phone claims the incident was racially motivated.
In an interview with FOX 2, Diamond Robinson said she was talking on her phone around her Eastpointe neighborhood when she was approached by a neighbor who had taken issue with the level of her voice. Robinson added the woman told her to either cut the call or “talk lower.”
“I said ‘Get out of my face,’ and I proceeded to walk past her. She is saying whatever she is saying, three minutes later, Eastpointe police pulls up,” Robinson recalled, adding that the woman had recently moved to the neighborhood.
After the police arrived, Robinson said she started recording the incident on Facebook Live. “I’m not doing anything wrong by walking up and down the street talking on my phone,” she was heard saying in the video.
Her filming of the incident on the social media platform, however, did not help matters as she was issued with a ticket. “I get a ticket for being a public nuisance because I’m talking too loud on my phone,” she was heard asking in the video. “That’s why I got a ticket?”
Robinson said the confrontation left her upset and she ended up installing security cameras around her home as a result. She also said she’s going to challenge the ticket. “There’s no way police should be called on me when I am on my own property, in my own neighborhood, on my own block,” she said.
She added she was left with no resort but to record the incident on Facebook Live as she wanted to raise awareness. “A lot of these things are being pushed under the rug and they don’t need to,” she said. “We can sit here all day and we can chant, we can riot, and we can do all of those things (but) that is not going to make a change if you don’t speak up at that time, at that moment.”
Robinson’s White neighbor refused to talk about the incident when she was contacted by FOX 2. She, however, said the ticket Robinson was issued “speaks for itself.” Responding to the heavy fine, a police officer told the news outlet Robinson will have the opportunity to challenge it in court.
