A Black manager and a chef at a popular Irish pub are furious after they said Charlotte police mistook them for burglars and left them in handcuffs for 20 minutes Sunday.
The workers, manager Paul Booker and chef Brenton Jenkins, had just returned to Fitzgerald’s from a food festival at about 3 a.m. to do inventory and plan for the week when they said they were racially profiled, according to WCNC.
“I just don’t want people to ignore this or think we are overacting because I could have easily lost my life,” Jenkins told the news station.
Booker, a manager at the restaurant, said in an interview with WBTV someone saw him earlier using a key to enter the building, there were no signs of forced entry and police still “came in guns drawn.”
“If that’s protocol then that protocol needs to change,” he said.
Surveillance video WBTV obtained showed Booker and Jenkins walk to the door with their hands up as officers with flashlights met them in the bar. Earlier footage also showed the men entering the bar with a key.
“They just kept saying ‘you don’t work here, you don’t look like employees,’” Jenkins said. “You’re about to take my life because someone made a call and you pre-judged me before you even get in here assessing the situation.”
The Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police Department said in a statement released Wednesday on Twitter that officers responded to the incident just before 3:20 a.m. after receiving a call from security officers about an active break-in.
When officers arrived, the security officers told them “no one should be in that facility at this time,” police said in the statement.
Officers looked into the property, which had the lights off, and checked its perimeter for signs of forced entry before getting a key from security to enter, police said.
“Officers remained outside, displayed flashlights, identified themselves, asked for hands to be visible and for the individuals to come outside,” police said in the statement.
That’s when two men later identified as Booker and Jenkins walked toward the front entrance but “did NOT immediately respond to verbal commands to come out of the establishment,” police said in the statement.
Booker told WBTV he asked police what they were doing, told them repeatedly that he works at the bar and showed an officer his keys.
“And he’s like, ‘No. Come out.’ And I said ‘No, I work here,'” Booker said.
Officers detained Booker and Jenkins with handcuffs “to search the rest of the building, search for any weapons, run background checks, verify their stories, and to de-escalate the situation,” police said.
“No one was injured, and the situation was explained clearly,” police said. “The employees did have permission to be inside of the facility after hours.”
Police also said once the building was cleared less than 10 minutes later, the handcuffs were removed and the men were released.
“I feel humiliated as a person. I feel disrespected,” Jenkins said. “I just feel helpless.”
Police said in the social media statement that they have responded to numerous breaking-and-entering calls in the Central Division where the incident took place.
Police have gotten seven calls about commercial burglaries in the last 30 days alone, officials said in the post.
