Black Teen Profiled, Pepper-Sprayed Inside His Own Home After Cops Mistake Him For Burglar

The parents of a North Carolina teenager are outraged that police pepper-sprayed their son on Monday inside their home after a neighbor mistook him for an intruder. Ricky and Stacy Tyler, both white, have fostered 18-year-old DeShawn Currie for about a year.

 

ABC 11 reports, the Tylers, their three young children and DeShawn moved to Fuquay-Varina in July. The couple said that while they are still getting to know their neighbors, it’s hurtful someone would assume DeShawn was a burglar just for going about his normal routine of walking home after school.

“He’s my baby boy just as much as my other three children are,” Stacy said.

DeShawn was coming home early from school so she left the side door to their home unlocked.

Police said when a neighbor saw DeShawn walk in, they called 911 to report a break-in.

Three officers responded and came inside the home.

“They was like, ‘Put your hands on the door,'” DeShawn recalled. “I was like, ‘For what? This is my house.’ I was like, ‘Why are y’all in here?'”

When officers pointed to the pictures of the Tyler’s three children on the mantle, suggesting that he doesn’t belong there, DeShawn became angry.

When an argument ensued, DeShawn said one of the officers pepper-sprayed him in the face.

Stacy came home and found the EMS treating DeShawn in the driveway.

She explained to the officers that DeShawn was a part of their family, but her children had a difficult time understanding the police officers’ reaction.

“My 5-year-old last night, she looked at me and said, ‘Mama I don’t understand why they hated our brother, and they had to come in and hurt him.'”

“Everything that we’ve worked so hard for in the past years was stripped away yesterday in just a matter of moments,” Ricky Tyler said.

“I’m feeling comfortable.” I had moved into my room, and I’m feeling like I’m loved,” DeShawn said. “And then when they come in and they just profile me and say that I’m not who I am. And that I do not stay here because there was white kids on the wall, that really made me mad.”

Police released a statement on Monday saying officers responded to a report of suspicious criminal activity at the Tyler’s home and that there have been reports of such activity in the area.

According to police,  DeShawn became threatening and belligerent. When he would not follow the officers’ instructions, they pepper-sprayed him.

In his own home. 

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