Even with the institutional protections I have as a professor, department leadership has not only ignored my appeal to address the racial climate that led to this incident, they have also sought to intimidate me into silence.
Three Black men are accusing the San Francisco Police Department of racial profiling after they were detained at a high-end department store for several hours before being cleared of wrongdoing.
The three friends and Oakland natives were detained at the Saks Fifth Avenue store on Union Square on March 3.
Police said one of the men detained matched the description provided by a caller of a man the caller said had been brandishing a firearm inside the store.
The men said they had been shopping inside the store for 30 minutes or less when police approached them with guns drawn.
“‘Hey you three, get the f down, ” an officer said to them, according to Greg Peirson, who was handcuffed because police believed he matcher the description of the man with the gun.