Brian Friar credit card drama w/ Texas police officers. A black father of six claims being racially profiled for having too many credit cards while at a Burleson convenience store.
A black Texas man has told of being racially profiled after recently being ‘questioned’ by three armed police officers, after recently coming across the father of six being in possession of ‘too many’ credit cards.
Brian Friar, 39, had gone to a gas station in Burleson, Texas, to withdraw cash from an ATM when he was approached by a police officer on August 12 according to an exclusive report via the dailymail.
The white officer demanded to see Friar’s ID and asked him to prove that the credit cards in his wallet belonged to him. It remained unclear what probable cause inspired the officer demanding to know the ‘black man’s’ identity and what he held in possession.
The cop said to Friar, who is from nearby Fort Worth: ‘Prove to me that the rest of those cards are yours. You’ve got like ten there.’
Friar said he filmed the exchange on his phone because he was frightened, saying: ‘I hadn’t done anything wrong. They ran my name as though I was a criminal.’
I started filming cause I was frightened
He added: ‘It was very racist to just come to me and ask me whose credit cards I had.’
Friar, a forklift operator, said: ‘I was at the ATM machine at the store, minding my own business, looking through my cards to see which one I would use.
‘The next thing I know a policeman came up to me saying that I have a lot of credit cards.
‘Then two other officers pop up. I started filming because I was frightened. He had a gun on him, and the other ones had guns too.’
The policeman even asked Friar: ‘How did you end up in Burleson?’
Friar explained he was in a rush because his wife had gotten a flat tire and he needed to get to her.
Friar has since accused the officers of racially profiling him and saying had he been a white man, he would not have been asked to prove that his credit cards were his own.
Would father of six been subjected to ‘police questioning’ had he been white?
Offered Friar: ‘I showed him three cards to show him it was my name on there. He was telling me to slow down.
‘They were harassing me. I was a black man in a dominant white town.
‘I wasn’t dressed like a bum – I hadn’t done anything wrong.’
Friar said although people were in the gas station, no one intervened or took interest in what was happening, only receiving a few glancing looks, saying: ‘I was a nobody in the store.’
He said he began to film the encounter because he ‘didn’t feel comfortable’, adding: ‘I didn’t know what else to do. I was protecting myself.’
Referring to the death of George Floyd, Friar pointed out that he too was in a convenience store before he died and said if it wasn’t for citizens filming his arrest, the officers involved might not have been held accountable.
Suspicious because he was black?
Friar was eventually allowed to leave the store with the cash he had withdrawn from the machine, while saying the episode left him, ‘shaken up’.
Responded Chief Cordell of the Burleson Police Department, ‘Our three officers had stopped in the QT to take a break and I am told were approached by a male (witness) who told them the gentleman was at an ATM machine attempting to get money while using multiple cards and that the transaction kept being denied.
‘He said the man was acting suspicious. The officers approached the man, activated their body worn cameras and explained why they were contacting him.
‘Officers observed multiple receipts and cards as described by the witness. Officers asked him if he minded sharing identification to match the name on the cards and he eventually provided identification and cards.’
He added: ‘The male said he had so many cards that he had forgotten the pin and that is why the transactions were declined. The cards matched the ID so the officers ended the encounter.
‘I am told the entire contact lasted approximately six minutes.’
Friar insists that it was only when he began recording the episode that the officers appeared to turn on their body cameras, as one jokingly waved to his camera and another said ‘I’ve got a camera too’.
He added: ‘This stuff is scary. I was scared.’