Oklahoma Police Apologize After Approaching Black Man With Guns Drawn Responding to White Couple Making False 911 Call
Oklahoma police officers are looking into a couple for false reporting after they called 911 alleging a Black man pulled a gun on them during a road rage incident. A police search wouldn’t find any weapons.
“There’s repercussions for false reporting of a crime, so that’s something that we’re definitely going to take a look at this week to see if there’s anything we can do on that side of the call,” Norman Police Department Maj. Jamie Shattuck told OKC FOX 25. The incident took place on June 15 when Steven Bomar was filling his vehicle with gas when he was approched by police who had their guns drawn and placed him in handcuffs. From Bomar’s point-of-view a white couple had cut him off on the road, given him the middle finger and called the N-word during a road rage incident. Bomar ignored the incident and stopped at a gas station before officers walked up to him.
The caller who called 911 after the altercation claimed Bomar had pulled a gun and told the dispatcher, “It’s a black guy, and he’s in a newer red Chevy Suburban and it has rims on it.” The caller’s vehicle allegedly had a “Back the Blue” sticker on it. Footage shows what happened when officers approached him with their guns drawn.
“Hey, let me see your hands,” an officer said as he pointed the gun at Bomar while exiting the police vehicle. Bomar said he was scared and officers told them he was being detained, not arrested, as they asked him to step out of the vehicle and placed him in handcuffs.
“They rolled their window down, called me a n—er,” Bomar said. “I didn’t say anything to them, didn’t do anything to them.”
Bomar says he believed the couple were drug users with visible scabs on their face. “I could tell those people just didn’t like me. Obviously, they shouted racial slurs at me and they had a Blue Lives Matter sticker on the back of their car. And so, they wanted to try to get me into some trouble, obviously” he said.
Police officers put Bomar in the back of a police vehicle. “If you guys need to search my truck you can, there’s no firearm, I don’t have a gun, I don’t carry a gun,” he said.
Bomar told the Black Wall Street Times, “I told him that I was f—ing scared and I didn’t know what to do, I just wanted to comply. I was detained and they told me that someone called road rage on me and that I was chasing them with a gun, and, as you can imagine, the cops did not find any gun.”
Officers did search Bomar’s vehicle and didn’t find any guns. He was detained for about 15 minutes before officers removed the handcuffs and released him. Officers offered their apologies about what happened and a supervisor also arrived on the scene to extended his apologies.
Norman Police Department Public Information Officer Sarah Jensen told The Black Wall Street Times.
“This is standard response protocol on a report of an individual feloniously pointing a firearm at another individual(s). Based on the information reported to the Norman Communications Center, officers responded in a manner that prioritizes safety for all,” she said. Police attempted to call the couple back multiple times, however, were unable to make contact with them.
“I am really upset about those people just randomly calling the cops on me saying I have a gun because I’m in a nice car and I’m Black with dreadlocks,” Bomar said.
Chief Kevin Foster says a record of the couple’s number would be kept and that action would be taken if something happened again. Councilwoman Brandi Studley says she learned after speaking with Foster that the caller gave a different number than they used to make the 911 call and and provided a fake name.
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