Comedian Jay Pharoah said that he was stopped and handcuffed by Los Angeles police, with one officer kneeling on his neck in a restraint similar to the one that ended in George Floyd’s death.
In a video posted to Instagram, the former Saturday Night Live actor said that he was exercising in Los Angeles when four officers approached him with guns drawn, handcuffed him and held him to the ground.
Pharoah said that the incident took place about a week before Ahmaud Arbery was shot and killed by two white men while jogging in Glynn County, Georgia.
Photo: Getty Images/AFP
He said that the officers told him he was held because he fit the description of “a black man in this area, with gray sweatpants on and a gray shirt.”
Security footage included in the video appears to show Pharoah walking down a sidewalk when a police officer runs up to him from behind with his gun pointed at him.
Another officer on foot joins that officer, also with his gun drawn, as a police cruiser rolls onto the scene. Two officers quickly exit the vehicle, one with his gun pointed.
The security footage appears to show the officers gathering around Pharoah to handcuff him as he lays spread out on the ground, and one officer putting his knee on Pharoah’s neck.
“They tell me to get on the ground, spread my arms out,” Pharoah said in the video. “They put me in cuffs. The officer takes his knee, puts it on my neck. It wasn’t as long as George Floyd, but I know how it feels.”
Pharoah, who during his stint on Saturday Night Live portrayed former US president Barack Obama, told the officers to look him up on Google.
“You will see that you made a big mistake,” he said he told them.
The officers released him “a minute later.”
“We are aware of the Instagram post and are looking into it,” Los Angeles police spokesman officer Drake Madison said.
The Guardian has not independently verified the footage.
Pharoah said that he was sharing the story because while he could have been an Ahmaud Arbery or a George Floyd, he was not.
“I’m still here to tell my story,” he said.
Pharoah went on CBS’ The Talk to discuss the incident in an episode scheduled to air on Monday. On the show, he described the kneeling as “totally gratuitous.”
“They didn’t have to do that,” he said.
“I was just trying to exercise,” he said. “It could have easily turned into another situation if I wasn’t who I am. And the point is that being black in America is just that, being black in America. Other people can’t level with the same fears I have. Leaving the house, we should not have to fear going to the grocery store, going to get some gas, running down the street. It’s called human civility. That’s what it is. It’s called being a human. That’s why everyone is out protesting. Corona put us in the house, and George Floyd took us out of it.”
In the Instagram video, Pharoah said that before this encounter, he had never been in handcuffs.
His parents had tried to protect him from the realities of racism, he said, but now he beseeched all black men to educate themselves on the law so that if police ever stop them, “we have the knowledge and we have the power to overthrow.”
“Be in the know,” he ended his video. “I’m Jay Pharoah, and I’m a black man in America. And my life matters. Black lives always matter.”
LANDMARK CASE: ‘Every night we were dragged to US soldiers and sexually abused. Every week we were forced to undergo venereal disease tests,’ a victim said More than 100 South Korean women who were forced to work as prostitutes for US soldiers stationed in the country have filed a landmark lawsuit accusing Washington of abuse, their lawyers said yesterday. Historians and activists say tens of thousands of South Korean women worked for state-sanctioned brothels from the 1950s to 1980s, serving US troops stationed in country to protect the South from North Korea. In 2022, South Korea’s top court ruled that the government had illegally “established, managed and operated” such brothels for the US military, ordering it to pay about 120 plaintiffs compensation. Last week, 117 victims
‘HYANGDO’: A South Korean lawmaker said there was no credible evidence to support rumors that Kim Jong-un has a son with a disability or who is studying abroad South Korea’s spy agency yesterday said that North Korean leader Kim Jong-un’s daughter, Kim Ju-ae, who last week accompanied him on a high-profile visit to Beijing, is understood to be his recognized successor. The teenager drew global attention when she made her first official overseas trip with her father, as he met with Chinese President Xi Jinping (習近平) and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Analysts have long seen her as Kim’s likely successor, although some have suggested she has an older brother who is being secretly groomed as the next leader. The South Korean National Intelligence Service (NIS) “assesses that she [Kim Ju-ae]
In the week before his fatal shooting, right-wing US political activist Charlie Kirk cheered the boom of conservative young men in South Korea and warned about a “globalist menace” in Tokyo on his first speaking tour of Asia. Kirk, 31, who helped amplify US President Donald Trump’s agenda to young voters with often inflammatory rhetoric focused on issues such as gender and immigration, was shot in the neck on Wednesday at a speaking event at a Utah university. In Seoul on Friday last week, he spoke about how he “brought Trump to victory,” while addressing Build Up Korea 2025, a conservative conference
China has approved the creation of a national nature reserve at the disputed Scarborough Shoal (Huangyan Island, 黃岩島), claimed by Taiwan and the Philippines, the government said yesterday, as Beijing moves to reinforce its territorial claims in the contested region. A notice posted online by the Chinese State Council said that details about the area and size of the project would be released separately by the Chinese National Forestry and Grassland Administration. “The building of the Huangyan Island National Nature Reserve is an important guarantee for maintaining the diversity, stability and sustainability of the natural ecosystem of Huangyan Island,” the notice said. Scarborough
RSS