It turns out, it was the Arkansas cop who didn’t belong in the city (and really, at his job) all along. England, Ark. police officer Michael Moore was fired from his job on Wednesday after telling a group of black men that “you don’t belong in my city,” late last month.
The incident all started on July 21, when Demarcus Bunch—who had met up with some of his friends to shoot a rap video—saw the officer was watching them as they gathered together, only to continue to follow them as they drove through town.
Bunch told CNN that he started recording his encounter with the suspicious cop, based on the bad vibe he got from him.
“The reason I walked up (to him) recording is I could kind of feel—I had a gut feeling—that there was going to be a bad vibe from the way he followed us everywhere we went,” Bunch told CNN.
So he hit record and he, along with his cousin Shannon Scribner went to introduce themselves, noting that their uncle is also an England Police officer
“I’m Mike Moore,” the officer said to the two men as they approached him.
“We are Dale Scribner’s nephews,” Bunch said in reference to his uncle.
“We are here just trying to record a video,” Scribner added
“OK, and?” Moore said, apparently unimpressed.
“We just noticed you’ve been following us everywhere,” Bunch pointed out.
“Are you recording right now?” Moore asked Bunch, who confirmed that he was.
“You know why? Because you don’t belong in my city,” Moore continued, despite knowing that he was being recorded.
“We’re from here,” Bunch insisted.
“But you understand, I know who my people are, right, who belongs here and who doesn’t. We’ve got gang wars going on, we’ve got all kinds of stuff and I come from the big city where this stuff is small, OK? So, that’s cool. Do your thing,” Moore said.
The most bizarre part of the exchange is when Moore insisted he knew everyone in the area, before continuing like he was reading a script “My name is Mike Moore. I’m not from here.”
OK Mike, so if you’re not from here then ... 1) how is it your city and 2) all of a sudden you know everyone ... but clearly not since you don’t know the people who were born and raised in the area because you know ... you are actually the intruder in this scenario.
Pleased with himself, Moore walks away with a smug smirk on his face before telling the men to back up from his car so he could “get [his] dog out.”
Moore lingers where the men are for several more minutes before ultimately leaving.
Bunch filed a complaint with the police chief after showing the footage to his uncle and other family members and waited for a response. A lieutenant with the department initially reached out to him, but after that, days went by and he didn’t hear anything else about an investigation.
So on Tuesday, 15 days after filing the complaint, he decided to post the video to Facebook ... and somehow, conveniently and miraculously, Moore was fired the next day.
England Chief of Police Danna Powell confirmed in a one-sentence news release that Moore was fired on Wednesday, according to CNN.
“We wanted to give the chief the opportunity to perform her investigation,” Scribner said, according to the Hill. “So we held the video close to our chest and waited for her to provide a response.”
But given everything that went down, they believe that Powell should now be held accountable for allowing the officer to continue working, seemingly without repercussion, up until that point.
“Personally, I feel like the chief should be held accountable as well for allowing him to even continue to work as long as he’s worked after showing of the video,” Bunch said.