A Cleveland man is accusing a bank of racially profiling him after he was simply trying to cash a check. According to Cleveland 19 News, Paul McCowns says he went to a Huntington bank to cash a check.
He said he had just started a new job, working there for around 3 weeks. He went inside and asked bank employees to cash the check. They asked for 2 forms of ID and a fingerprint as proof so he could cash the check of $1,000.
Feeling suspicious, they call McCowns’ employer so he can verify that he’s working at where he got the check from. When McCown’s employer didn’t pick up the phone, the bank employees told him they couldn’t cash it, so McCowns just left. Then, things started to get pretty confusing.
“I get in my truck and the squad car pull in front of me and he says get out of the car,” McCowns said.
What he didn’t know is that as he was leaving the bank, employees called 9-1-1 on him.
“He’s trying to cash a check and the check is fraudulent. It does not match our records,” said the teller to a 9-1-1 operator.
The operator asked the teller: “Does he know you called 9-1-1?”
The teller responded: “No.”
McCowns then got put into a squad car and the bank ends up getting in contact with his employer. But by the time they verified his employer, the whole situation just turned out to be one big mess.
“My employer said, “Yes he works for me. He just started and yes, my payroll company does pay him that much,” McCowns explained.
McCowns said he cashed another check the next day at another Huntington location with no police called on him. The first location then tried to apologize, but it had all turned into one avoidable mess. I don’t know what to say, other than this really sounds like racial profiling. You call the cops on the guy for simply trying to cash a check. Then he goes to another location of the same bank and has no issues whatsoever. I don’t know what to tell you other than it sounds really fishy to me.
Flip the page to hear from McCowns.