The latest viral video to hit social media seems to depict a black man berating a white police officer for pulling him over during a routine traffic stop.
A man using the name Randell Minott originally posted a video that shows a man talking into the camera while the police officer stands in the background, occasionally nodding or shaking his head. The officer wears a generic vest, with no badge or identifying marks. He does not appear to be wearing a police uniform, but blue jeans and a t-shirt under the vest.
https://twitter.com/choco_optimus/status/906686851079180288
“Turn signal not made is a big enough of a crime for you to feel like you need to take out your service pistol,” says the passenger in the video. “Right? Right? Right? That’s what’s up.”
The video has been shared more than 300,000 times on Twitter and viewed more than 40,000 times on Facebook, where it was posted on Friday. The video offers no information as to date or location of the incident, but licensing company Viral Hog said that the incident occurred on September 6 of this year in Kansas City, Missouri.
The Facebook post is accompanied by a caption that references Michael Bennett, the Seahawks player who claimed to have been racially profiled by police officers in Las Vegas. “Las Vegas police officers singled me out and pointed their guns at me for doing nothing more than simply being a black man in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Bennett wrote in an open letter.
Equality. pic.twitter.com/NQ4pJt94AZ
— Michael Bennett (@mosesbread72) September 6, 2017
It is unclear why a police officer would allow a passenger of any race to speak into their phone while being pulled over. The video has also been posted to World Star Hip Hop, a site known for outrageous videos.
Minott has not responded to TheWrap’s request for comment.
His Facebook profile says he lives in Kathmandu, Nepal, and that he also goes by the name Jimmy Spliff. At the bottom of his Facebook post, it says, “For licensing or usage, contact licensing@viralhog.com.” When TheWrap reached out to this address, a spokesperson said they “believe the video to be real.”
“I was driving and was pulled over for not using my left turn signal. The cop taped on my back window to get me to turn around because windows were already down. He used his flash light, so I could not initially see. Then, when he moved it, I could see the gun pointed in my face,” the licensor said according to the Viral Hog spokesperson.
Viral Hog is a company that buys and sells viral videos. “ViralHog distributes content to major news and media outlets around the world including ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox, BBC, and all the major Japanese TV networks,” their website says.
