On July 21, England, Arkansas police officer Mike Moore was filmed after following a group of black men around and stating “you don’t belong in my city.”
The incident was taped by 28-year-old Demarcus Bunch. Bunch and his friends met up in the small town of 3,000 residents to shoot a music video.
Initially, he held off on posting the racially-charged video but decided to publicize it after not receiving feedback regarding the complaint he filed with the police chief.
RELATED STORIES
“You don’t belong in my city.” – A police officer was fired after saying this to a group of black men filming a music video. pic.twitter.com/qpON1YeoZb
— AJ+ (@ajplus) August 10, 2018
The video went viral on August 7. Moore was fired the next day.
Bunch expressed his distaste and the disrespect he felt, “If you look at the news every other day it’s racial profiling, stereotyping and senseless killings for young black men. And had I not been recording and he didn’t have his camera, who’s to say what would have happened.”
In May 2017, Moore was fired from his job at the Lonoke County Sheriff’s Department; he’d been on the force for 10 months.
Subsequently, Bunch and his entourage weren’t able to film the video they intended, “we were going to start on our video (after Moore left), but our videographer wasn’t comfortable being down there,” he explained.
This incident is just one of many that have cropped up all over the United States.
Just yesterday, 11-year-old Fatayi Jomoh was handcuffed by Jacksonville, Florida police for bouncing a basketball.
On August 3, 22-year-old college student Jordan McDowell had Sante Fe, New Mexico police called on him while shopping in a convenience store.
McDowell’s offense?
According to the store clerk, “because he’s being arrogant, because he’s black.”
Though he did nothing wrong, the call was listed as “disorderly conduct.”
