An African-American man is suing a bank in the Detroit area after employees called the police when he tried to deposit money he had been awarded in a racial discrimination suit.
Sauntore Thomas was trying to deposit the cheques from the settlement with his former employer.
However, a bank employee – herself African-American – refused and called the police on suspicion of fraud.
TCF bank in Livonia, Michigan, has apologised to Mr Thomas in a statement.
“Local police should not have been involved,” the statement read, according to the Detroit Free Press . “We strongly condemn racism and discrimination of any kind.”
The bank said they could not validate Mr Thomas’s cheques and said they take extra precautions when large sums of money are involved.
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But Mr Thomas, a US Air Force veteran, is now suing the bank. “They discriminated against me because I’m black. None of this would have happened if I were white,” he told the Free Press.
His lawsuit says he faced resistance for “banking while black”.
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