Treme Actor Suing Macy’s And NYPD After Being Handcuffed For Shopping While Black

Treme’s Rob Brown, a well-known award-winning actor, is suing Macy’s and the NYPD. The 29-year old Finding Forrester and The Dark Knight Rises actor says he was buying a watch for his mother in June when the New York City department store contacted police because they were concerned about possible credit card fraud. Brown believes he was targeted because he is Black. He filed a lawsuit in New York State Superior Court on Friday.

This week, the upscale Barneys New York luxury department store came under fire twice for similar “shopping while black” incidents involving claims of credit card fraud where the customers were Black and had purchased high-ticket items, only to be interrogated or handcuffed by police moments later.

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“You can’t let injustice roll like that,” Brown told the NY Post. He says he was on his way to his mother’s college graduation when he was handcuffed and was forced to miss an important part of the special event. “I’ll never get that time back. My mother was walking across the stage looking for me.”

Brown “says he was ‘paraded’ through Macy’s Herald Square in handcuffs and detained for an hour after being racially profiled and accused of using a fake card to buy his mother a $1,350 watch,” the NY Daily News reports:

He settled on a $1,350 silver Movado watch with gold trim. Brown said he purchased the last one, the display model, and strolled over to a Sunglass Hut in the store while he was waiting for it to be cleaned.

He said he saw some $350 Prada shades he liked and was also going to buy those — but while he was waiting for them to be tightened, he was suddenly swarmed by “at least three” plainclothes officers.

The Brooklyn-raised actor said he thought he was being robbed. He said he told the officers he wanted to see their ID, and the next thing he knew he was in handcuffs.
The suit says he was then “paraded” through the store like a criminal as the officers led him to a holding cell upstairs.

“They kept telling me, ‘Your card is fake. You’re going to jail,’” Brown said.
He said he “implored” them to check his ID — and a Macy’s employee did, going through the several pieces of identification he had on him one at a time.

“I had all sorts of forms of ID,” Brown said, but the officers maintained his card was “fake.”

The officers told him the ID “was false and that he could not afford to make such an expensive purchase,” the suit says.

Brown tweeted about the event back in June.

Got arrested at Macy’s while buying my ma a watch. Thought my card was fake cuffed me and tossed me in a cell. Then realized they were dicks

— Broccoli Rob (@robrown718) June 8, 2013

@kidblue yea man. Don’t be black while shopping at #Macy‘s Police might roll on u

— Broccoli Rob (@robrown718) June 8, 2013

Screenshot via WPIX 11

Editor’s note: The WPIX video that was originally embedded here is no longer available.