In what’s apparently the latest instance of Blackness seeming suspicious, officers arrested a former NFL player who was house hunting.
It seems that almost every day a new story surfaces about someone calling the cops on a Black person engaged in everyday activities–from sitting in a Starbucks to barbecuing in a park.
The latest instance involves Kellen Winslow Jr., who was released from jail after posting bail for an arrest by the San Diego County Sheriff’s Department Thursday on suspicion of burglary, NBC News reported.
Kellen Winslow Jr., 34, who played as a tight end for the Cleveland Browns and other teams, was arrested, in the northern San Diego County beach city of Encinitas..booked on suspicion of burglary..he was looking for a house to buy #AmericanHero pic.twitter.com/b9adExa3Nd
— geo (@delgeo1) June 10, 2018
Officers arrested the athlete, who played tight end for the Cleveland Browns and other teams, after someone called 911 to report that a suspicious Black man had “walked into a neighbor’s residence” in the San Diego County beach city of Encinitas. Winslow left after the caller confronted him. Deputies stopped Winslow nearby as he drove away.
There’s a perfectly reasonable explanation, Winslow’s spokeswoman Denise White told the news outlet. He was just doing something that people across the nation do every day. The athlete was home shopping for his mother-in-law. He never went inside the mobile home, which belongs to his wife’s friend.
Winslow’s father, Kellen Winslow Sr., had a Hall of Fame career with the San Diego Chargers. San Diego law enforcement officials didn’t give Winslow the benefit of the doubt, despite sharing the name of his famous father. It appears to be business as usual for the police department, which has a serious racial profiling problem.
A 2017 study by San Diego State University found that the San Diego Police Department disproportionately stopped and searched Blacks and Hispanics at a higher rate than whites.
