Store clerk calls police on premed student 'because he's being arrogant, because he's black'
A clerk at a convenience store in Santa Fe, N.M., reportedly called 911 on a 22-year-old premed college student because he was “arrogant” and “black.”
The student, Jordan McDowell, went to the store to buy candy at around 8 p.m. last Friday when he realized that the clerk was watching him before she called the police. McDowell, who attends Xavier University in New Orleans, said the woman called him “sketchy,” according to local station KRQE.
McDowell started to film the clerk while she was on the phone with the police. She can be heard saying, “And I want him out of the store right now. Because he’s being arrogant, because he’s black.”
“There’s nothing right about this, there’s nothing right to call the police on someone just because of their skin tone,” McDowell told KRQE.
McDowell admitted that when he heard the woman’s comments, the only thing he felt was rage. “But at the same time too,” he said, “I understood that racism in America never truly died.”
Police spoke to both McDowell and the employee but did not take any action.
The student is currently in Santa Fe to study Native American culture for a summer class.
This is far from the first instance of authorities being called on a black person for, seemingly, just existing. On July 31, a student at Smith College in Northampton, Mass., had college police called on her because she looked “suspicious” while reading and eating her lunch in a common room. Earlier in July, an employee at a Dollar General store in Buffalo, N.Y., called the police on a woman who was attempting to use a store coupon. Also in July, a black man was at the pool in his own apartment complex in Indianapolis when the police were called.
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