TORONTO – A Michigan police officer stopped a man last week for “walking with his hands in his pockets.”
The incident, which was captured on video, happened on U.S. Thanksgiving Day.
In the video, an Oakland County police officer explains to the man that someone called 911 to report a man was acting suspicious and “making people nervous.”
“By walking by?” the man, identified as Brandon McKean, asked.
“Yeah, they said you had your hands in your pockets,” the deputy said.
“Wow, walking by having your hands in your pockets makes people nervous to call the police when it’s snowing outside?” McKean said.
The deputy asked McKean if he was okay and what he “was up to today?”
Sounding agitated, McKean said: “Walking with my hands in my pockets, walking.”
The deputy asked the man if speaking with him was an inconvenience.
“Hell yeah, because of the whole police situation going on across the country, this is outrageous,” McKean said, referring to protests stemming from a grand jury’s decision not to indict a former Ferguson police officer who shot unarmed teen Michael Brown.
The officer explained that “we do have a lot of robberies” and he “was just checking” on McKean.
McKean was allowed to leave without incident.
On Monday, NBC News obtained the 911 recording from the store owner who called about a man that was making people “nervous.”
“There’s a light skinned guy that passes 5, 6 times back and forth,” the caller said.
The dispatcher asks if there are any weapons involved.
“No, but he walks by with hands in his pockets, walking back and forth, back and forth.”
McKean told the news station that the officer acted respectfully but felt a little uncomfortable about the situation.
“I felt like it was a little racial profiling either by the officer himself, or by the person who called,” the 25-year-old said.
Oakland County police released the officer’s video footage of the incident which shows the moments after McKean stopped recording.
The officer is heard explaining to the man what the person said on the 911 call.
“Well they said he was walking by three or four times, looked like he was casing the joint,” the deputy said. “I’m not saying you did that.”
The county sheriff defended the officer’s actions.
“From our point of view, if we get a 911 call where someone’s afraid, there’s really only two outcomes, we either go or we don’t,” Oakland Country Sheriff Michael Bouchard told ABC News.
The sheriff explained because of the call, the officer had probable cause to stop McKean and said the officer could have frisked the man and asked for identification but he didn’t.
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