Said the former SNL star to Gayle King: “Why do we have to feel like we’re guilty until proven innocent?”
Jay Pharoah“They’re telling me to lay on the ground,” he told. “It was a bad situation. I just felt disgusting. People are driving past looking at me like I’m an animal, a criminal, I did something. But I’m an innocent bystander.”
In April, before the death of George Floyd stoked a national uprising of protests against police brutality, Pharoah was jogging in Los Angeles when he was approached on the street by four police officers with their guns drawn. “I was exercising,” Pharoah said in a video he posted to Instagram last week. “I see an officer to the left of me. I’m not thinking anything of it, because I’m a law-abiding citizen.
The cops told Pharoah to lay on the ground. After he complied, one of the officers put his knee on the comedian’s neck and back before placing handcuffs on the actor. “It wasn’t as long as George Floyd, but I know how that feels,” Pharoah said in the Instagram video, referencing the eight minutes and 46 seconds that a Minneapolis officer kneeled on Floyd’s neck before he died.
Pharoah was stopped because he matched the description of a suspect. But speaking on Wednesday, he wondered why the police officers acted so aggressively when he was clearly not a threat. “We should never have to feel like our lives are in danger when we’re doing regular human activities,” he said. “I don’t want to have to fear for my life when I’m going to Whole Foods, getting some chips and guac and picking up a kombucha.
After King suggested Pharoah should have been given the benefit of the doubt, Pharoah added, “That’s the thing, Gayle. Black people in America, in general, why do we have to feel like we’re guilty until proven innocent? Where the other side gets innocent until proven guilty.”Pharoah, who told the officers to Google him after they had placed him in handcuffs, said the cops had apologized to him for the mix-up when the situation had ended. “That’s not enough,” an impassioned Pharoah said.
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