Last week Washington, D.C., police were called to investigate a suspected burglary. The police stopped a black man in a wealthy neighborhood who was minding his business and began questioning him. He told police that he had no idea why he was being stopped but believed that he was being singled out. Police told the man to sit on the ground. Jody Westby, who happened to be working from home this day, saw the police harassing a man she knew, so she told her housekeeper to record the incident and walked outside to confront the police.
Westby, an attorney and CEO of Global Cyber Risk LLC, told police that the man was a friend of many people in the area. She asked police for the address that gave the call for the burglary. When the police responded, she informed them that they weren't on the right street or in the right neighborhood. She then helped the man sitting on the ground to his feet and told police, "Please leave our neighborhood."
As police began to leave, Westby shouted toward them, "Just because he's black doesn't mean he's here to rob a house. He works for us. He's been in this neighborhood for 30 years."
Westby told the Washington Post after the incident: "You got a white woman and a Hispanic woman standing up for a black man against two black cops. … It was shameful how they behaved. … It was very interesting, in the sense of getting a picture of how black cops treat black people … and how humiliating that was for him. And how they were treating him just like a dog."
Watch the interaction below:
Read more at the Washington Post.