White woman confronts police officer arresting innocent black man ‘presumed to have robbed a house’

A WHITE woman has been filmed standing up to police officers who were trying to arrest a disabled black man for a burglary more than a kilometre away.

Lawyer Jody Westby stormed out of her home on October 1, demanding to know why local handyman Dennis Stucky was about to be searched.

The officer, who was black, said cops received reports of a burglary in the affluent, predominantly white Washington DC area and identified Mr Stucky as a possible suspect.

“We have a burglar alarm,” one of the officers said. “He’s (Mr Stucky’s) coming with bags.”

But after interrogating the officers, Ms Westby discovered the home burglary happened on a different block more than a kilometre away, police hadn’t even gone to the home and there no grounds for suspecting 64-year-old Mr Stucky.

“I’m an attoey and this is wrong!” Ms Westby, also a cyber­security consultant, said. “Now please leave our neighborhood.”

After complaining to a passing officer about the incident, Ms Westby secured Mr Stucky’s release.

“Come on Dennis, they said you can go,” she said.

She then tued to a female police officer, saying “I’m reporting this. Just because he’s black doesn’t mean he’s here to rob a house. He works for us, he’s been in this neighbourhood for 30 years.”

Mr Stucky maintained he did nothing wrong and was carrying his lunch in his bags.

According to The Washington Post, it emerged later that the owner of the “burgled” house had accidentally keyed in the wrong number to his garage, setting off the alert.

The responding officers did not have a description of a potential suspect when they went on patrol and detained Mr Stucky.

Ms Westby said the confrontation, captured on video by her housekeeper, demonstrates the way race and class matter in police interactions.

“It was very interesting, in the sense of getting a picture of how black cops treat black people,” Ms Westby told The Washington Post.

“And how humiliating that was for (Mr Stucky). And how they were treating him just like a dog.”

DC police department chief spokeswoman, Gwendolyn Crump, said there was “no misconduct” by the officers.

The incident will now be addressed at a committee on stop-searches next week.