Video Shows Michigan Police Stopping Man for Walking with Hands in Pockets

Add putting hands in pockets to the growing list of activities black people should stop doing if they want to avoid police suspicion.

Brandon McKean, a resident of Pontiac, Michigan, was stopped by a police officer on Thanksgiving after police received a call about a man walking around with his hands in his pockets and looking suspicious, according to a report by Mic. The high temperature in Pontiac on Thanksgiving was 32 degrees Fahrenheit, AccuWeather shows.

McKean recorded his interaction with the officer, who also pulled out his iPhone to capture the encounter. In the video posted to his Facebook page, McKean expressed his surprise that someone would call the cops on him for walking with his hands in the pockets.

"You were making people nervous," the officer said when McKean asked why he was being stopped.

"By walking by?" McKean then asked.

"Yeah, they said you had your hands in your pockets," the officer said.

"Wow. Walking by with your hands in your pockets makes people nervous when it's snowing outside?" McKean said to the officer, while snow flurries visibly fall in the frame.

McKean is clearly incensed at being stopped, prompting the officer to ask "Is it an inconvenience to talk to me?"

"Hell yeah, just because the whole police situation going on across the country," McKean responds, referencing the nationwide protests on police and race relations that heated up again last week after a grand jury decided not to indict a Ferguson, Missouri police officer for shooting and killing an unarmed black teenager.

"This is outrageous that you would let somebody tell you there's somebody on out the street with their hands in their pockets. There's 10,000 people in Pontiac right now with their hands in their pockets," McKean said.

The officer agreed that it's not unusual that someone would have their hands in their pockets in the cold, but said he was just responding to the call because "we do have a lot of robberies."

McKean then said he's just recording the incident to ensure his and the officer's safety, to which the officer replied "Me too," and pointed at his phone.

"I'm being very respectable, you're being very respectable… I'm just really mad at the situation of whoever called," McKean said.

"We gotta check on it," the officer said, referring to the initial call to police. "If you were feeling nervous and you called us, we'd check on it for you."