Black Man Arrested After Good Deed: I Was Profiled

A black man who helped a drunk neighbor get home safely says he was racially profiled by cops who thanked him with a host of criminal charges. Informed that emergency vehicles parked near his driveway on Nov. 17 had been sent to deal with the drunk man, Samir Ahmed of Silver Spring, Md., told Montgomery County police officers he had already taken the man home, per the Washington Post. However, a female officer became "infuriated" when he wouldn't provide the man's exact address, Ahmed tells HuffPo. An 18-minute video shows the 23-year-old facedown on the hood of a car, held by four officers, including a female who claims he's under the influence. "He helped the man … Y'all got him detained for absolutely nothing!" a neighbor says, per the Post. It's later explained that an officer smelled marijuana but Ahmed "didn't want to allow her to search him."

Court documents allege Ahmed—charged with resisting arrest, failure to obey a reasonably lawful order, obstructing and hindering, and disorderly conduct—had a plastic bag of "suspected marijuana" in his coat pocket. It "was such a small amount that I didn't even know I had it," Ahmed tells HuffPo. His lawyer adds "you can't smell marijuana, in a baggie inside of his left coat pocket, that hasn't been burned." Ahmed, who says he was sober, claims another motive for his arrest: race. "If I had blonde hair and blue eyes, this wouldn't be an issue," he tells the Post. "She wouldn't have been so disrespectful when I showed her nothing but respect." He adds three neighbors have filed a complaint against Montgomery County police, who said Tuesday they were preparing a statement on the case. (Cops were called on a black man cheering on his son's soccer team.)