Ryan Coogler was handcuffed, detained and put in the back of a police car while trying to make a regular withdrawal from Bank of America, body camera footage of his arrest shows. The newly released footage was published by TMZ on Thursday (March 10), detailing the moments that the acclaimed Black Panther director was detained in January.
Coogler is seen speaking to a bank teller and trying to make a withdrawal when several police officers approach him. The 35-year-old was handcuffed, taken outside and put in the back of a police car. In the clip, cops said they also detained his child’s nanny.
As reported by REVOLT, Coogler was wrongfully arrested at the Atlanta bank location after an employee at the branch called authorities about a possible bank robbery. The body camera footage indicates Coogler tried to pass a note to the bank teller requesting the amount of money to be withdrawn — $12,000 — rather than verbally telling the employee because he didn’t want to say the large sum out loud.
Coogler said he regularly makes large withdrawals in this way for his own safety, and he’s never had an issue at any other Bank of America location. In the footage, he calmly directs officers to his ID badge and, while sitting in the police car, tells them he’s about to suffer a panic attack.
Eventually, police clear up the situation and the director is released, at which point he gathers all of the responding officers‘ badge numbers and asks for the name of the Bank of America employee who called police.
Coogler spoke to TMZ about the incident on Wednesday (March 9).
“This situation should never have happened. However, Bank of America worked with me and addressed it to my satisfaction and we have moved on,” he said.
Bank of America also released a statement about his mistaken arrest, saying, “We deeply regret that this incident occurred. It never should have happened and we have apologized to Mr. Coogler.”
See the distressing body camera footage below.