A Cleveland man says he was racially profiled at a local branch when they called the cops on him for trying to cash a check.
Paul McCowns had just started a new job, and tried to cash his first paycheck. It was for $1,082.24.
The bank personnel asked for two forms of ID. McCowns provided them.
They then asked for a fingerprint. McCowns complied.
Even that wasn’t good enough. They tried to call McCowns’s new employer. When they couldn’t reach him, they “handed McCowns the check back, refusing to cash it.”
So McCowns left... at which point police showed up, ordered him out of his truck, handcuffed him, and put him in the back of the squad car. Because the tellers had also called 9-1-1:
“He’s trying to cash a check and the check is fraudulent. It does not match our records.”
McCowns was released only after the police were able to contact his employer, who of course confirmed that the check was legitimate: “Yes he works for me. He just started and yes, my payroll company does pay him that much.”
Add “Banking While Black” to the list of heinous crimes for which fine, upstanding citizens can have African-Americans arrested.
“It is obvious that since Paul gave them two forms of identification and offered his fingerprints, that the bank wasn’t questioning his identity. ... They also couldn’t have been questioning the legitimacy of the check because they were obviously able to pull up the account on the computer screen and had the employer’s number. Therefore, if they could confirm McCowns’ identity and the check, then they could only have been questioning the amount of the check.”
A black man was wrongfully arrested solely because he tried to cash a check for just over a thousand dollars. And naturally there had to be something suspicious about that.
