Iowa lineman playing ‘Pokemon Go’ has guns drawn on him by police searching for bank robbery suspect

Iowa City Police stopped an University of Iowa defensive lineman earlier this week then proceeded to draw their weapons on him in a legitimate case of mistaken identity, according to a Facebook post from the player.

23-year-old Faith Ekakitie was playing Pokemon Go when five officers stopped him and pointed four guns at him after approaching him from behind. The assumption was that Ekakitie, a black athlete, looked like a suspect in a bank robbery that happened 10 minutes earlier.

Ekakitie wrote on social media that “today was the first time I’ve truly feared for my life.”

“My pockets were checked, my backpack was opened up and searched carefully, and I was asked to lift up my shirt while they searched my waistband,” he wrote. “Not once did they identify themselves to me as Iowa City Police officers, but with four gun barrels staring me in the face, I wouldn’t dare question the authority of the men and woman in front of me. This is what happened from my point of view. ”

Ekakitie, a 6’3, 290-pound man from Brampton, Ontario, said that from the police perspective, they were looking for a large, black man, wearing all black with “something on top of his head.” The officers were also aware that the suspect they would be chasing was armed.

Ekakitie said — continuing the police perspective — he initially didn’t respond to officers because not only was he approached from behind but he had headphones in when he was in a local Iowa City park.

“They quickly move to action and identify themselves as the Iowa City police and ask me to turn around and place my hands up. I do not comply, they ask again, and again no response from me. So they all draw their guns and begin to slowly approach the suspect,” he wrote.

On that Wednesday, Ekakitie went to the park to enjoy some time on Pokemon Go, an extremely popular game played on mobile devices that match characters to different geographic locations which requires the user to be mobile. Music was blaring in his ears this afternoon. At one point, with police around him, he reached into his pocket for his cellphone.

For all the police had known while actively chasing a black man they assumed was their suspect, Ekakitie could’ve been reaching for a weapon, he said.

Referring to himself as “the suspect” he said he could’ve easily ended up as another statistic. Ekakitie could’ve been another black victim killed in an act of misunderstanding and police brutality.

In a country where officers disproportionately kill black people at a rate higher than anyone else and following the shooting deaths of Alton Sterling, Philando Castile and many others, Ekakitie said at a time like this it was hard to stay silent.

And even though he was playing a game, since Pokemon Go’s inception it has been widely documented that many black people said that fear has stifled their fun. Some have even said it’s a “death sentence” to play the game while being black.

“I am thankful to be alive, and I do now realize, that it very well could have been me, a friend of mine, my brother, your cousin, your nephew etc,” he said. “Misunderstandings happen all the time and just like that things can go south very quickly. It is extremely sad that our society has brainwashed us all to the point where we can’t feel safe being approached by the police officers in our respective communities. Not all police officers are out to get you, but at the same time, not all people who fit a criminal profile are criminals.”

Sgt. Jorey Bailey of the Iowa City Police Department told SB Nation Sunday morning that he did not know of any discipline coming toward the five officers involved in the case. He said he was familiar with the incident but was not present during it.

Bailey also said that he was aware of the bank robbery and of the suspect police were after that day and that police did stop Ekakitie, who happened to be black and wearing black clothing. Bailey told ESPN that the officers were not undercover and were in police uniforms. He told SB Nation that more information would be available in the coming days.

A 2015 Des Moines Register study showed that black people in Iowa are more likely to be stopped and arrested by police. In Iowa City, where the incident occurred, officers arrested and conducted consent searches of people of color more frequently than white people. The city’s police chief said the studies did not raise any red flags because the department goes through annual diversity training. This has caused many black Iowans to feel racially profiled by police officers.

Finishing his post on Facebook, Ekakitie thanked the police for handling the situation — where he was racially profiled — sensitively. He also said he urges “us” to unlearn some of the prejudices that plague “our” minds and society. He said he’s convinced in the same way that prejudice tendencies were learned, they can be unlearned.