Comment Michael Jennings was watering flowers for his out-of-town neighbor in May when an officer approached him. Within minutes he was arrested, handcuffed and in the back of a police cruiser, showing a video his lawyer released this week. “I’m supposed to be here. I’m Pastor Jennings. I live across the street,” he told the officer during the May 22 exchange in his neighbor’s driveway in Childersburg, Ala. “I look out for their house while they’re gone, watering their flowers,” she added. The 20-minute video captured his subsequent arrest. An initially friendly encounter with three officers escalated when Jennings refused to show his ID, accused police of racial profiling, threatened to sue and dared them to arrest him. After the two sides got into a shouting match, officers did just that, charging Jennings in the video with obstructing government business, a charge dismissed in June by a municipal judge, one of his attorneys, Harry Daniels, said in a statement . The Childersburg Police Department did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Washington Post late Thursday. Jennings told ABC News that he cooperated with police even though he was agitated because he feared he would be shot. “Being bound and deprived of your freedom is something else. It’s dehumanizing, and I thought, “Why would they do that?” It’s something that — gives you nightmares,” he said during the interview. Jennings, 56, has been a pastor at Vision of Abundant Life Church for more than 30 years. Jennings’ account echoes events in recent years in which police have been called to black men engaged in everyday activities — baking, swimming in a pool, viewing a house with a real estate agent, bird watching or trying to break into their own apartment building. In one 2018 incident, a white woman in San Francisco threatened to call the police on an 8-year-old girl who was selling bottled water without a license. Such incidents have led people to create the hashtag #LivingWhileBlack. ‘You know why the lady called the cops’: Black men face 911 calls for innocent acts The chain of events that led to Jennings’ arrest began when one of his neighbors, who did not recognize him, called 911 to report a suspicious person outside her neighbors’ home. The couple who lived there had left town. Dashcam footage shows that when the first officer arrived, he greeted Jennings with a “hey” and Jennings responded by saying, “Hey man, how’s it going?” He was recalled from there. The officer told Jennings that someone had called police to report a strange man around the house who “wasn’t supposed to be here.” Jennings identified himself as “Pastor Jennings” and said he lived across the street. When the officer asked for identification to prove this, Jennings refused, saying he had done nothing wrong. “You want to lock me up, lock me up. I’m not showing you anything,” Jennings said. “I will continue to water these flowers. I don’t care who called you. Lock me up and see what happens.” Alabama law allows law enforcement to require someone in a public place to identify themselves, give their address and explain their actions if the officer “reasonably suspects” that person has committed or is about to commit to commit a felony or other public offence. In their filing, Jennings’ attorneys said their client did not have to provide police with identification because he was “not in a public place.” A black couple says an appraiser let them down. So they “whitewashed” their house and say the value skyrocketed. After refusing to provide identification, Jennings was driven away. Officers followed him and handcuffed him before the two sides engaged in a shouting match. The officer who first approached Jennings began to arrest him, the video shows. Minutes later, after Jennings was handcuffed and in the back of the cruiser, the woman who called police came outside to speak with officers at their request, the video shows. She told police she knew Jennings, lived nearby, and wouldn’t have been surprised if her neighbors asked him to water their flowers while they were gone. “They is friends and went out of town today. He can water their flowers. It would be perfectly normal,” he said, adding “That’s probably my fault.” Jennings’ lawyers said the dash cam footage revealed evidence that “paved the way for legal action against the officers”. “This video makes it clear that these officers decided they were going to arrest Pastor Jennings less than five minutes after the pull over and then tried to rewrite the story by claiming he hadn’t identified himself when that was the first thing he did.” , Daniels said. “It wasn’t just an illegal arrest. It’s kidnapping. It is absurd, irresponsible and illegal.” Jennings told ABC News he is considering filing a racial discrimination lawsuit against the department. Regardless, he wants to do something that prevents someone else from going through what he has endured. “It’s been exhausting,” he told NBC News, “and I really hope there will be some change.”
