Ving Rhames Shares His Experience with Racial Profiling in His Own Neighborhood
In an interview on SiriusXM’s “The Clay Cane Show” Friday, actor Ving Rhames shared that he was held at gunpoint — inside his own house — after a neighbor called the police on him.
According to TooFab.com Rhames said he was inside his Santa Monica home, watching ESPN in his basketball shorts, when he heard some commotion in his backyard. at first, Rhames thought it was just his bulldog puppies running around, but then he heard a knock at the front door.
“I get up, I open the door and there’s a red dot pointed at my face from a 9-millimeter [gun], and they say, ‘Put up your hands.’ Literally,” Rhames said.
He then explained that the police officers instructed him to open up the screen door with one hand and walk outside. In addition to the officer with the gun pointed at him, two other officers were on hand, including one with a police dog and the captain. The captain recognized Rhames.
“The captain of police — and you can check with the Santa Monica Police Department — he recognized me because my son played against his [son’s] school,” Rhames said. “They apologized and what have you.”
Rhames said he then asked the police why they were at his home. The officer told them that a woman in his neighborhood called and said a “large black man” was breaking in. “He said to me, ‘A woman called 911 [and] said a large black man was breaking into the house,’ and so they came,” Rhames explained, adding that the neighbor later denied making the call.
My problem is what if it was my son?
Rhames shared what concerned him the most about the incident was what would’ve happened if his 16- year- old son Freedom was at home. “My problem is what if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something, and you thought it was a gun?” Rhames said to Cane. “Just like, I don’t know, Trayvon had a bag of Skittles.” Refering to the police’s habit of mistakenly murdering unarmed black males.
It’s unfortunate that racial profiling is very common in suburban neighborhoods. Even hip hop rapper J. Cole had a swat team sent to his home because his neighbors thought he sold drugs, he even wrote a song about it.
The Santa Monica Police Department spokesperson also told TooFab the incident was one of several that contribtued to the launch of a “Meet Your Neighbors” program in January 2017. “Many residents do not know their neighbors.” A press release for the initiative added, “Our challenge to the community is to step out of their comfort zone and get to know the people on their block – their neighbors.”
