A White man in Winston-Salem, North Carlonia called the police on a Black woman who was trying to go for a swim in the neighborhood pool on the Fourth of July, according to New York Post.
This man called the cops on a Black neighbor while she was using a community pool pic.twitter.com/oZerclloNG
— NowThis (@nowthisnews) July 5, 2018
Video of the alleged racial profiling was posted to the Facebook page of the alleged victim, Jasmine Edwards, and has amassed more than 4.5 million views as of Friday morning. Edwards was at the pool with her child when the man approached her asking if she had identification to prove she lived in the neighborhood. “This is a classic case of racial profiling in my half a million $$ neighborhood pool,” she wrote under the video.
The man who was with his children reported Edwards to the cops because she did not have an ID on her to prove that she lived in the Glenridge community. Residents of the gated community are the only ones allowed to use the pool, and they are granted access with a keycard, which the woman possessed.
“Where does it say that I have to show an ID to use my pool? My own pool,” she asks on video while speaking to the man in front of the responding officers. The police sided with the woman and told the man she didn’t need an ID card after she proved that her keycard scanned her into the pool area.
The footage of the incident began to trend on Twitter with the hashtag #idadam. Though the man was not identified at the time of the recording, Edwards can be heard referring to him as Adam. Several people began to share and tweet his alleged employer. The Glenrdige Homeowners Association later identified the man as Adam Bloom, the pool chairman and a board member of the community’s homeowner’s association, reports Journal Now.
Bloom was released from the position after the board became aware of his behavior.
“We sincerely regret that an incident occurred yesterday at our community pool that left neighbors feeling racially profiled. In confronting and calling the police on one of our neighbors, the pool chair escalated a situation in a way that does not reflect the inclusive values Glenridge seeks to uphold as a community. We also have re-instituted a sign-in sheet at the pool to make sure no resident feels singled out again,” a statement from the Homeowners Association read.
An attorney for Bloom says as the chairman of the pool; his position required him to ask for identification from pool-goers on a constant basis.
