In the latest incident of harassment of black people to go viral on social media, a black man was removed from the hotel he was staying in after taking a phone call with his mother in the lobby.
Jermaine Massey was staying at the DoubleTree by Hilton hotel in Portland, Oregon on the 22nd of December. While there, he was speaking to his mother on the phone over a personal matter. It was during this call that Massey was approached by 71-year-old security guard Earl Wesley Meyers.
“”He even went so far as to say he’s there to protect the safety of the guests,” said Massey on his Instagram account. “As if I weren’t a guest and I was causing a disturbance and I was a safety threat.”
Meyers interrupted the call, asking Massey for his room number to verify that he was a guest of the hotel. Meyers later called police to have Massey escorted from the property, even after he produced his room key to verify he was staying on the property. The cost of his stay was not refunded.
“You know judging someone based off of the color of their skin – you never know how it feels until you’ve actually been there. I could have went to jail had I responded a different way,” Massey said on his Instagram account.
His incident follows a long string of similar cases, including police being called on people Barbequing legally in an Oakland park, a black girl selling water, and others.
Doubletree hotels have announced a review of the policies that led to the incident, claimed in a statement that, “We have a zero-tolerance stance on discrimination of any kind.”
The hotel chain has also fired to employees over the incident, but did not name the pair. Meanwhile, Massey is still intending to pursue legal action over his mistreatment
Image via screen capture from video source.