Joe Morrow, a Minnesota man, was the victim of what many call “banking while Black” after being put in handcuffs after attempting to cash his paycheck inside a U.S. Bank branch in suburban Minneapolis last October. Morrow told KSTP-TV that although he has an account with the bank, employees at a branch in Columbia Heights, Minnesota, “were all looking at me and just staring at me and then looking at the check and then staring at me again. And I’m already knowing what they’re thinking — that the check fake.”
Morrow moved to Minnesota from Mississippi in 2020 found a job as an “order picker,” says the incident started before the police had arrived at the bank where he tried to cash a check for approx. $900. The man says he was informed by the bank’s manager, John Askwith, that the check was fraudulent and “you people always coming in here with fake checks.”
There has been an increase amount of fake checks going to that location according to the police report. Once Sgt. Justin Pletcher arrived, police body camera footage showed Morrow already in Askwith’s office, leaning back in a chair, hands folded. The 23-year-old maintained the check was real.
“Joe, I need you to calm down, first of all, OK? Don’t say anything stupid, because you’re just going to get arrested for it,” the officer said.
Soon afterward, another police officer arrived. The manager, who’s blurred in the video, told authorities that the check was fake and that he had already confirmed it with Morrow’s employer. It would later proved that Askwith only called for verification after Morrow was removed from his office. Once he did, the employer told him the check was genuine.
The video shows Morrow quickly getting up from the chair, where he is immediately put in handcuffs. “When I’m coming out of office, I was handcuffed. … People were looking … like I’m a criminal or something,” Morrow said.
Pletcher alleged in his report that Morrow was detained after he “flexed at John in a threatening manner,” but Morrow denies those allegations.
“I didn’t threaten him. I got up, like, I’m …” he explained. “The guy told the officer, ‘Can you get him out of my office? He might take something on my desk.’ That’s when I got super mad. ‘I’m going to touch something on your desk?’”
The clip sparked outrage from people online. One Twitter user wrote, “This is exhausting.”
The bank has since reached a settlement with Morrow almost two weeks after the incident took place. Details of the agreement have not yet been made public according to the news station.
The bank initially alleged “we dispute the facts as they’re being portrayed” when contacted in October by KTSP. Lee Henderson, a spokesperson for U.S. Bank, said then that Morrow’s race had nothing to do with how the bank employees treated him.
“After a thorough internal investigation, there is nothing to indicate that the customer’s race or ethnicity played a factor in the service he received at this branch,” Henderson said.
U.S. Bank CEO Andy Cecere issuing a statement Friday, Dec. 10, that said in part, “I am deeply sorry for where we have failed. What Mr. Morrow experienced is not the experience that any customer should have. … Sometimes, unfortunately, we don’t live up to our goals.”
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