Minnesota Police Departments Apologize For Wrongfully Detaining A Black Man
In what they are calling an “unfortunate case of mistaken identity,” three Minnesota police departments in the cities of Edina, Richfield, and Bloomington, are now apologizing to Darrius Strong for wrongfully stopping and detaining him on July 10.
The incident took place in Bloomington, Minnesota. Officers detained him for a non-violent warrant issued in his name, according to KARE-11.
Strong shared the life or death events in a post to his Facebook family, that he “could have been dead today.”
"Please-please-please, let me make it back to my fiance, my daughter, my friends," Strong said he remembered thinking to himself.
Giving more details, Strong recalled that he was following the rules and driving the speed limit before he was pulled over. He then says that he remembers multiple officers in squad cars arriving with their weapons drawn, making him get out of his vehicle and in the back of one of their squad cars.
"George Floyd came into my head ... specifically, the clip where they put him in the back and they're doing all kinds of things to him," Strong explained.
However, the police departments eventually realized that another suspect from another arrest had fraudulently used Strong’s name. On July 11, the Richfield Police Department issued a joint apology on behalf of the Richfield, Bloomington, and Edina police departments on their Facebook.
RPD confirmed that Strong was “compliant throughout the incident and maintained there was no such warrant for his arrest,” and that “the Richfield police officer ran additional checks on the driver and closely examined the arrest warrant. She discovered a different person falsely used Mr. Strong’s name during a previous police encounter that resulted in an arrest warrant being issued in his name.”
"Just remember that ... anything can happen to us. Especially black bodies, black people, black men," Strong says concluding his video. "Make sure you check on your loved ones, your friends that are black, that are traveling in these suburban communities because it could have gone a whole different route ... and racial profiling's a thing."
