During the search for a white suspect, LAPD arrested a black man
Black man in Los Angles claims he was racially profiled outside of his house by Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD). Police were searching for a white criminal.
Antone Austin from Los Angles stated that while he was moving trash outside from his Hollywood apartment, two LAPD police officers showed up and ordered him to turn around. The police arrived at the scene after hearing a complaint of domestic abuse. The police said that the caller did not provide any description or facial recognition and told them the suspect’s location, which was a few blocks away from where Austin lived. One officer confirms that they did not have any suspect description, but they still arrested Austin anyway.
“Is this the dude?” one officer asked. “Probably,” the other officer replied. During the arrest, Austin questioned the officers, “We got a call … OK man, I don’t know who I’m looking for yet … Turn around, man! What is your problem?” one of the LAPD officers with the body camera replied.
Austin’s girlfriend, Michelle Michlewicz, heard the disturbance from the shower and rushed outside in her robe. During the arrest, she was disrobed, and an officer pushed and held her due to intervention. The person who called also tried to tell the cops that Austin was not the suspect, but they did not listen and continued the arrest. Both Austin and his girlfriend were arrested, but later, the charges were dropped.
“In your mind, you want to say to yourself, ‘It happened because I’m Black,’ and then you don’t want to be that petty. You don’t want to be that small. You don’t want to really believe that people’s thinking is really [on] that low of a scale,” Austin told ABC News. “Then when you watch the footage, and you hear the guy in the car — the girl in the 911 call told him to go to a restaurant that was three blocks away from my house.”
The body camera video from the terrible event has been released to the public. The lawsuit is set for a jury. There will be a trial in Los Angles later this year. “It was racial profiling,” Faisal Gill, the couple’s lawyer, said. “No question about it, and to add injury to insult, they arrest my clients, put them in jail … Even the woman who called 911 tried to tell the officers that they had the wrong person.”
This article was penned by Jonathan P. Wright. You can read more of Jonathan P. Wright’s work in the Editorial Pick section.
