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Ving Rhames was recently held at gunpoint in his own home by police officers who suspected he was burglarizing the property after a neighbor reported that a “large black man” had broken in, the actor said on Friday.
“I get up, I open the door and there’s a red dot pointed at my face from a 9-millimeter [gun], and they say, ‘Put up your hands.’ Literally.”
The police officer who allegedly pointed the gun at him was joined by two other police officers, a police dog and the captain of police — the latter who eventually recognized Rhames not from his film work but because their son’s respective high school basketball teams had previously played against each other, Rhames said.
Asked why police were there, Rhames claimed police told them they were responding to a 911 call about a potential burglary. “He said to me, ‘A woman called 911 [and] said a large black man was breaking into the house. And so we came,’ ”
“You can check this with the Santa Monica Police Department. They apologized and what have you,” Rhames said. “This is the God’s honest truth.”
“What if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something, and you thought it was a gun? Just like, I don’t know, Trayvon had a bag of Skittles.”
Seriously? The man's neighbor (several of them perhaps) called the cops who arrived in force -- not just a cop or two but five units.
Let me be clear: the issue here isn't how the cops handled the matter, it's that the man's neighbor is who called the cops.
I don't care how well one knows or doesn't know one's neighbors, in a single-family home sort of neighborhood wherein the homes are close enough and situated so one can see from one's own home to one or more neighbor's, one at least by-sight recognizes one's neighbors. One sees them in the yard, walking around, getting the mail, coming and going, etc.
Apparently black folks aren't allowed to lock themselves out of the house?