Helping someone can get you arrested if you are Black. This was the case for 23-year-old Samir Ahmed in Silver Spring, Maryland, who was arrested by a band of cops after helping a drunk neighbor on Nov. 17.
In a now viral video, Ahmed is pinned against a car by several police officers. According to witnesses and the person who called the cops due to a drunk neighbor, he was only assisting the inebriated person who could not walk. The witnesses are begging the officers to let the young man go, but they refuse and later claimed he “smelled” like marijuana. Reportedly, the drunk neighbor was still passed out nearby.
The neighbor who is recording says, “He helped the man. He helped him! Y’all got him detained for absolutely nothing!”
See the video below:
According to court records, Ahmed was charged with resisting arrest, failure to obey a reasonably lawful order, obstructing and hindering, and disorderly conduct. Montgomery County Police Department released the following statement, “The Department is reviewing the circumstances surrounding the arrest to determine if any Department policies, procedures or laws were violated during the incident. This assessment will include a review of the responding officers’ body-worn camera footage.”
The attorney for Samir Ahmed, J. Wyndal Gordon, told The Washington Post, “We vehemently dispute that the officer smelled marijuana; you can’t smell marijuana in a baggie inside of his left coat pocket that hasn’t been burned. It’s a very negligible amount, if anything.” He also added, “He’s a Good Samaritan being converted to a criminal defendant. There’s a strange irony to all these facts.” Ahmed’s court date is in January.
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Cops Arrest Black Man On His Own Block Who Was Helping A Drunk Neighbor was originally published on newsone.com
