Darris Love is an actor who starred in Straight Outta Compton, ER and CSI: Crime Scene Investigation. He is also a black man recently identified as burglary suspect.
According to NBC News, the 38-year-old actor was wrongfully arrested at gunpoint last week by Glendale police after being mistaken for a wanted burglar. Following the arrest, Love was held in custody for seven hours.
The actual burglary was so high-stakes–a freeway car chase took place. The Los Angeles County sheriff's department released a statement, claiming police saw Love running in the area where the chase ended. Officers spotted Love, who cops claim "closely resembled" the suspect.
Love's lawyer, James Bryant, affirms his client was actually several miles from the crime scene at Glendale Galleria Mall. Love was held in police custody for several hours. While jailed, he pleaded with authorities, asking them to watch the mall's surveillance video.
"We were just shopping, just doing what normal people do in the mall," Love said during a news conference held Tuesday. He was joined by national Black Lives Matter founder, Melina Abdullah.
Love expressed a concern for his life given the rash of police brutality against black people. "If you do anything wrong — breathe wrong, look wrong — you could be dead," he noted.
Love's girlfriend Ayesha Dumas said she was simply waiting for Love to return with a parking validation, when police approached her car. She claims she was "held at gunpoint with a K-9 dog barking at [her] to get out of [her] car."
Bryant expressed the police could have done a "number of things" to clear his client as a suspect.
"We feel [Love] was just randomly picked out and racially profiled by Glendale police," Bryant continued.
Love and Dumas plan on filing a claim with the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in preparation for a civil lawsuit.
Love is also using his arrest as a platform to raise more awareness of racial profiling on social media, using the hashtag #IAmNotASuspect. He appeared on TMZ to discuss the issue Wednesday afternoon.
Just finished doing TMZ please share #iamnotasuspect https://t.co/t2vG7TdvVK— Darris Love (@DarrisLove) June 13, 2018
