It just keeps happening…Black people keep getting arrested for being Black.
• A Black man, Pastor Michael Jennings, in Alabama was arrested for watering his neighbor’s flowers.
• Mr. Jennings’ neighbors were out of town and asked Mr. Jennings to water their flowers yet, while performing the neighborly act of watering the flowers, Mr. Jennings was arrested by police.
• Police received a call from a white woman, who lives on the same street, who said Mr. Jennings looked “suspicious.”
• Police handcuffed Mr. Jennings, placed him in the back of a squad car, and charged him with obstructing government operations. Charges were later dismissed.
• Pastor Jennings identified himself to Alabama’s Childersburg Police Department, which is reflected in the body cam footage, police would later falsely claim that Pastor Jennings did not identify himself.
• The white woman who called police, refused to give police her name, stating to police that she recognized Mr. Jennings and that the incident was “probably” her fault.
White people calling police on Black people they deem suspicious can have deadly outcomes. Black people are considered “lucky” if an interaction with police ends with them still being alive. Indeed, Mr. Jennings could have easily been killed, with his neighbor’s flowers on his coffin.