Disclaimer: Jay Pharoah’s Instagram video contains a visual representing the method of death enacted on George Floyd as well as footage from the actual recording of Floyd’s death.
Jay Pharoah has shared a harrowing story of an LAPD officer putting a knee on his neck, similar to what happened to George Floyd, who was killed by Minneapolis police. “I could have easily been an Ahmaud Arbery or a George Floyd,” he said in an Instagram video uploaded Friday.
Along with uploading the Instagram video, the comedian told the cast of The Talk Friday that he was jogging near Ventura Blvd. and Corbin Ave. in Los Angeles, a week before the February killing of Ahmaud Arbery.
“I see a gun from my peripheral and I look and the officer is like, ‘Freeze–get on the ground,’ and I’m like ‘Oh snap,'” he said, according to Deadline. “…Three more officers drove up…it’s hot, corona is definitely something to be worried about, the police officers didn’t have on gloves, they didn’t have on masks…When they put me in cuffs, after they were all on me, an officer put his knee on my neck.”
In the Instagram video, he revealed that he told the officers to Google his name, and after the officers were notified that the actual suspect had been caught, they apologized. The video Pharoah posted includes security camera footage that captured Pharoah’s wrongful arrest.
“It could have easily turned into another situation if I wasn’t who I am. And the point here is being Black in America, is just that, being Black in America,” he said on CBS’s The Talk. “Other people can’t level with the same fears I ahve. Leaving the house, we should not have to fear going to the grocery store, going to get some gas, running down the street. It’s called human civility. That’s what it is. It’s about being a human.”
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Photo: Getty Images
