A Black man was arrested in Maryland for doing nothing more than “walking while Black” after the cop refused to inform him of the crime he had committed other than disorderly conduct for refusing to identify himself.
However, Maryland law requires police to have a reasonable suspicion that the person they are detaining may be carrying a gun before they can lawfully demand identification if the person is not driving. People are required to provide identification if pulled over.
In this case, the Seat Pleasant police officer never mentioned a gun once during the detainment, according to body camera footage posted on the We the People University YouTube channel run by Abiyah Israel, a Black man who spent years working as a police officer and sheriff’s deputy before leaving law enforcement to educate citizens on their rights.
Instead, the Seat Pleasant police officer accused the Black man, whose name has not been publicized and whose face was obscured in the video, of acting “suspicious” for walking down a public sidewalk late at night, then looking back at the cops.
The police officer also described the neighborhood he was walking in as a “high crime area” – which are generally poverty-stricken Black neighborhoods determined by police where the United States Supreme Court has ruled people have less constitutional rights than in other whiter neighborhoods – allowing police to act in ways they would not be allowed to do in other neighborhoods.
It is not clear from Israel’s video when the incident took place, but it is at least two years old because it took place under the previous Seat Pleasant police chief, Devan Martin, who was suspended in 2022 for mismanaging funds and has since been replaced.
“He was suspended for not managing his police officers,” Israel says.
But it is clear that the Black man was well versed in his civil rights even though he ended up arrested anyway. And even though the video is at least two years old, there is still a lot citizens can learn from it when interacting with police.
The Detainment
“What crime have I committed?” the Black man asks the cop, who claims to be a lieutenant.
“Number one, you don’t have ID,” the cop responds.
“That’s not a crime,” the Black man responds.
“Listen to me, in the state of Maryland, anywhere you go, you need identification, the cop says. “Failure to identify yourself, you can go to jail, OK?”
“I didn’t commit a crime, nothing,” the Black man says. “I didn’t do anything unlawful.”
“Why are you walking around here at 1 o’clock in the morning?’
“Because it’s a public sidewalk.”
The cop who has ordered the Black man to keep his hands on his head then threatens to tackle him if he dares remove them.
“You take them down. I’m going to take you to the ground. You understand,” the cop threatens.
But the Black man continues to exercise his right to question the unlawful arrest.
“You’ll stop me because I’m walking down the sidewalk?” the Black man responds. “I didn’t do anything unlawful, illegal anything.”
“You don’t have a ID on you, boss?” the cop persists.
“Sir, can I ask you what crime did I commit? What crime did I commit?” the Black man continues to ask.
The cop then threatens to arrest him for disorderly conduct if he does not lower his voice, although the video shows both men speaking in normal conversational tones.
“You be searching me when I didn’t give you consent to search me,” the Black man says.
“I don’t need consent to search you,” the cop responds.
“Yes, you do.”
“No, I don’t.”
Maryland law states that cops can only search citizens if they have probable cause the person has committed a crime, which is a higher standard of proof compared to reasonable suspicion.
Over the next several minutes, the cop continues to demand identification while the Black man continues to ask what crime he has committed. Eventually, the cop tries to justify the detainment by telling the Black man he is in a high-crime area.
“Here’s the biggest problem: this is a high-crime area, OK? A lot of break-ins happen. It’s one o’clock in the morning.”
“So you’re accusing me of trying to break into someone’s house because I was walking down the sidewalk?”
The cop then handcuffs and arrests him on a disorderly conduct charge.
“I didn’t do anything disorderly. All I did was ask you questions. You never answered my questions,” the Black man says as he is being arrested.
Israel, the YouTube host, described the episode as “an illegal detainment because all he was doing was walking down the sidewalk, and they said he was suspicious.”
Israel also described the incident as a “false arrest” instead of a “bad arrest,” explaining that a false arrest is when the cop just makes things up to justify an arrest, and a bad arrest is when the cop genuinely believes a person was breaking the law even though they were not.
He also said the Seat Pleasant Police Department, which represents a city of less than 5,000 people where more than 86 percent are Black, has a long history of corruption and abuse.
“This was during the time when Devan Martin was the police chief,” Israel said.
“We can see why he was removed and why he was suspended because if you think this video is bad, I was looking at a lot of videos from this department and they’re this bad.”
