In today’s episode of being profiled and mistreated while Black, a young woman went into a Los Angeles Citibank to deposit a check given to her by her father, and claims the teller confiscated it and threatened to call the police.
The events unfolded on Tuesday (March 22) and TikTok user @BabyStorme — a young, Black woman — uses her social media profile to share what allegedly took place. In the videos, she is visibly shaken up as she sits in her car and tells viewers that her father sent her a check in the amount of $30,000.00 so that she would be able to pay her rent throughout the year.
“So tell me why I literally never experienced what I just experienced,” the woman says as tears roll down her face.
“I’m not the kind of person to come on here crying, but fuck Citibank because my dad sent me a check to pay off my rent for the next year and that’s it, and I go into Citibank to cash the check so I can pay my rent and they confiscate my check and refuse to give it back.”
As the TikToker fights to hold back tears, she goes on to say that the teller told her she took the check because they couldn’t verify it. BabyStorme then offers to call her father so that he can provide his banking information to assist, but the teller stands firm in her decision to not allow the check to be cashed.
“No, we can’t verify this check, I can’t verify this check and I’m confiscating this check,” is what BabyStorme says the woman told her. She also alleged that the teller threatened to not only call the police but tried to lock her in the bank and make her delete the video footage as well.
Viewers then ask if BabyStorme has any video of the incident, at which point she proceeded to post a video with very clear audio from the confrontation.
“She needs to keep the check for further investigation to see where it came from,” a man can be heard saying in the video. “Also, delete the recordings … because you’re not allowed to record things,” the teller is heard saying.
After the encounter took place Baby Storme pleads, “Like, this is my fucking rent money and to think that she was going to confiscate my check, she did, but I ended up getting it back because I made her give me my check back, but to think that like I can’t pay my rent right now because of fucking racist ass bitches who work at fucking Citibank? Guess who’s suing Citibank?”
These dangerous incidents are all too familiar in communities of color. Two weeks ago, bodycam footage showed Black Panther director Ryan Coogler being detained at an Atlanta Bank of America. Police drew guns on Coogler after he attempted to withdraw money from his own bank account.