Another day in the U.S.A., another systematic injustice against Americans of color.
I’m not sure what policy allows for a bank to have someone (and their entire family) embarrassed & handcuffed without any explanation when attempting to deposit a good check, in possession of all proper documentation.
But that’s exactly what Emprise Bank in Wichita, KS did to one of it’s customers as he was trying to finish up the business of depositing a check he’d gotten from selling his family’s old Michigan home.
Rawstory provides the infuriating details:
Ali, who moved to the United States in 1993, took a check for $151,000 from the sale of his family’s old house in Michigan to Wichita’s Emprise Bank. As he told local news station KAKE, he brought verification documents along with him, but a few minutes after he first presented tellers with the check, he was in handcuffs.
After being taken outside, Ali discovered his wife Hadil and their 15-year-old daughter Hawra were in the backseat of the police car waiting for him. Sometime during their three-hour detainment, Ali said police called his 11-year-old son’s school to tell them to hold him because his parents had been arrested.
As if matters weren’t bad enough, Ali, nor any of his family was even told why they’d been arrested. Imagine how terrifying it must’ve been to get drag netted up like a family of criminals when you’re just trying to conduct normal day-to-day American business.
“No one told me why I was being arrested until we were being released,” Ali told The Sunflower. “They didn’t read me rights or anything. We were devastated. Terrified. Crying the whole time,” Ali said. “We had no idea what the arrest was for.”
Ali spoke to Whichita State’s student paper, The Sunflower, saying he believes he was racially profiled & wouldn’t have been bothered had the check not been signed by him, but instead someone with the name of “James or Robert”:
“I would expect this in the 1950s. Not now,” Ali said.
“I don’t want people to feel sad for me. I just want people to be aware that we have an issue,” Ali said. “This shouldn’t be a product of 21st century.”
Ali says he plans taking legal action against the bank.