Hollywood TV producer mistaken for bank robber and detained for several hours by Beverly Hills Police.
A TV producer was mistaken for a bank robber, now the Beverly Hills police department “deeply regrets” error.
According to reports, Charles Belk says he was held for six hours because he fit the description of a “tall, bald head, black male”.
The Beverly Hills Police Department issued an apology for detaining Hollywood Producers Charles Belk, saying that it “deeply regrets” mistaking him for a bank robber.
Charles Belk has worked on several TV shows including “The Greatest Song” and “Douglass U.”
Belk later took to Facebook and said he was “innocently walking by myself” from a restaurant to his car when “my freedom was taken from me by the Beverly Hills Police Department.”
“Within an evening, I was wrongly arrested, locked up, denied a phone call, denied explanation of charges against me, denied ever being read my rights, denied being able to speak to my lawyer for a lengthy time, and denied being told that my car had been impounded,” Belk wrote. “All because I was mis-indentified as the wrong ‘tall, bald head, black male,’ … ‘fitting the description.’”
The police department admitted Monday that Belk’s detention was a case of mistaken identity. “The Beverly Hills Police Department deeply regrets the inconvenience to Mr. Belk and has reached out to him to express those regrets and further explain the circumstances,” police said in a statement obtained by TheWrap. ”However, based on witness accounts, and his location close to the bank, officers properly detained and arrested him based on the totality of the circumstances known at the time of the field investigation.” [TheWrap]
Currently, the bank robber suspect still remains at large. But, according to reports his alleged female accomplice has been taken into custody.
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