Jermaine Massey was staying in a DoubleTree hotel in Portland, Oregon so that he could attend a Travis Scott concert. When he returned to the hotel late Saturday he received a phone call from his mother. Worried that she may have an emergency since she called so late, he decided to make a phone call while he was still in the lobby, to see if she was okay.
Massey, who is Black and a resident of Washington state was reportedly a registered guest at the hotel but that didn’t prevent a white hotel security guard from asking him to leave, The New York Post reports. Or from calling the police.
So Massey, 34, recorded the encounter in a series of videos, sharing them on Instagram.
The videos have since gone viral, The Hill reports.
They show the hotel guard — dubbed “hotel Earl”— interrupting Massey’s phone call and asking if he was a guest at the hotel and what his room number was. Massey was a little flustered and couldn’t remember his room number.
“The security guard ‘Earl’ … said that I was a safety threat to the other guests and that I was trespassing,” he wrote in one of his Instagram posts.
Then hotel employees called the police, even though Massey produced his room key to show that he was indeed staying at the hotel. The hotel manager, identified as “Luis” by Massey came over to see what the problem was, but police were already well on their way by that time, he wrote.
“They already had in their minds that they didn’t want me there so I waited for the cops to show up and when they did, I explained my side of the story and they didn’t want to hear it,” Massey writes. “They asked me if I had personal items in my room (which of course I did) and asked me to retrieve them.”
Then he says, police told him that because the hotel had asked him to leave, he would be considered a trespasser and thrown in jail if he didn’t comply. So he gathered his belongings and left without even receiving a refund for his room.
In a statement to KOIN 6 News, police confirmed Massey’s account.
“The employees, who had authority to trespass people from the hotel, requested the officer contact a person in the lobby they had reportedly directed to leave the property. The officer spoke with the man, who gathered his items and left the location,” the statement read.
In a statement, Paul Peralta, the hotel’s manager told The Oregonian:
“Safety and security of our guests and associates is our top priority at the DoubleTree by Hilton Portland. 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.”
Massey’s Instagram post indicates he’s not so easily placated.
“I cannot believe the level of professionalism that this hotel property had with me tonight,” he writes. “It is never okay to discriminate against guests for the color of their skin. Earl is a disgrace, calls himself a man but calls the Portland Police Dept. on a man who was minding his own business in the lobby of his hotel.”
Massey added that he wasn’t necessarily shocked that this happened, but is definitely disappointed.
“I will be seeking justice. Believe that.” he wrote.
So maybe we’ll have a new Twitter hashtag to go alongside #BarbecuingWhileBlack #DrivingWhileBlack, and #BankingWhileBlack: #CallingYourMotherWhileBlack.