The latest instance of white people calling the police on black people for doing next-to-nothing occurred just in time for the holidays in Portland, Oregon, where a hotel security guard found a black guest suspicious as he talked on the phone in the lobby.
The Oregonian reported that Jermaine Massey had just returned from a concert when he took a call from his mother in the lobby of the DoubleTree Hotel where he was staying on his first visit to Portland.
Because his mother lives on the East Coast and it was later there, Massey told the newspaper, he sat down before going back up to his room to see if she was alright.
The man said in his now-viral videos that while he was on the phone with his mother in the lobby, a security guard whose nametag read "Earl" approached him and asked if he was a guest at the hotel.
Massey told the guard he was and, according to The Oregonian, became irritated when the guard kept pressing and asked what his room number was.
He responded that he couldn't recall and was on the phone -- and that's when the guard had a manager call the police, in spite of him holding his room key card.
According to one of Massey's posts detailing the event, the guard told him he was "a safety threat" and had caused a "disturbance."
The manager, Massey said, asked him what had happened only after complying with the guard's request and calling police, and when officers arrived, he was asked to remove his belongings from his room and told that if he didn't he "would be considered a trespasser and would be thrown in jail."
In his post, Massey said he complied and checked out of the room -- and was not given a refund.
"A police report describes Massey as very angry and loud," The Oregonian reported. "An officer told Massey outside the hotel that he had no way of knowing if the incident was fueled by racism, but that Massey should follow up with his complaints with hotel management so he wouldn’t have to be arrested for trespassing."
The report noted that Paul Peralta, the general manager of the Portland DoubleTree where the incident occurred, reached out to Massey to "amend" the situation.
“Safety and security of our guests and associates is our top priority at the Doubletree by Hilton Portland,” Peralta said in a statement. “This unfortunate incident is likely the result of a misunderstanding between our hotel and guest. We are sorry that this matter ended the way it did. We are place of public accommodation and do not discriminate against any individuals or groups.”
Massey, however, said in his posts that what happened to him at the DoubleTree was racial profiling and discrimination.
"I plan to try to seek justice and make sure it doesn't happen to anybody else," he said in one of his videos.
You can watch and read Massey's posts below: