Authorities have released 911 audio of a white woman calling to report a Black man looking at her suspiciously near a Michigan cafe.
In the 911 audio Atlanta Black Star obtained Tuesday, the woman can be heard telling a Royal Oaks police dispatcher she had just left the Inn Season Cafe on Fourth Street and was planning to drive to Rochester in a rental car when she noticed a Black driver “just staring at me in my vehicle.”
“He’s an African-American male, and I don’t know what his deal is, but it’s making me not feel very comfortable at all,” the woman said in the call.
It led to Royal Oaks Police officers questioning 20-year-old Devin Myers for more than one hour last Tuesday in the Detroit suburb.
Inn Season manager Erin Frey told the Detroit Free Press he was trying to find a parking spot at the time.
He only noticed the woman because she looked like she was about to pull out of her parking space, so he waited, Frey said. But when the driver didn’t move, he found another spot.
Meanwhile, when the first officer called to the scene arrived, he “handle it so aggressively right from the get-go” that the man asked for a supervisor, Frey said.
Myers is then shown on video explaining to the supervisor that if Frey was him in this situation, “you would have let her go 10 minutes ago.”
The supervisor explained that part of the reason a resolution took so long is that he was four miles away from the scene. Another reason is that it took time for the responding officer to gather all the facts, he said.
“Are we supposed to have all these facts before talking to people?” the supervisor asked.
He then called the call “nonsense.”
Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel told NBC 4 Detroit the Civil Rights Division of her office is investigating to make sure Myers’ rights were not violated.
The Royal Oak Police Department has apologized to Myers in a statement.
“What should have been a very short encounter was extended when the officer involved insisted on getting Mr. Myers’ identification,” the department said in the statement. “The officer had no legal right to demand the identification and should have simply advised Mr. Myers why we were there and allowed him to go on his way.
“The officer involved is a new, probationary officer and he made a mistake. This officer will be provided with remedial training to address this issue.”
The police department also said the supervisor who responded to the incident “has been disciplined and every Royal Oak police supervisor has received additional training in procedural justice.”
