Talk about the irony. A white Detroit cop is under fire after he racially profiled a black police officer at a diversity training center for police.
According to ABC News, Christopher Williams was among about 100 plainclothes officers who attended a diversity and inclusion session at the city’s police training center. He attended the training with $5,000 in his pocket after his girlfriend, who is also an officer who participated in the training, gave him the money to purchase money orders for the bill payments.
While in the bathroom, Williams encountered a white officer who saw him put the cash in his pocket. The white officer later approached Williams in the parking lot and threw him against a fence and handcuffed him.
“You’re not supposed to have that kind of money,” Williams recalled the officer saying to him.
It took his girlfriend showing the white officer her bank withdrawal receipt in order for him to be released. However, after learning of the incident, Assistant Police Chief James White, who is also Black, defended the actions of the white officer involved.
“I’d like to see what happened,” White said in a brief statement on the department’s Facebook page. “To say that it’s a racial component, I’ve got someone in the bathroom with a very large sum of money on him and an inquiry is being made as to where did you get the money. That’s not unreasonable to me.”
White added that the second thing he would have looked into is where the cash came from and why Williams had it. He also questioned why Williams didn’t identify himself as an officer.
“One of the things that I’d be trying to find out is at what point did the officer identify himself as a police officer, which is required by our policy — that once you’re engaged in confrontation or conversation relative to an investigation, you should identify yourself as a member of our agency,” White said.
Williams has since hired attorney Todd Perkins who called White’s response to the matter, “shameful”.
“My client was injured by this — mentally,” Perkins said. “He’s distraught. There has to be some remuneration that comes to my client. He doesn’t want this to happen to anyone.”
Press play below for more on a similar story.
