Black Panther director Ryan Coogler was mistaken for a bank robbery in Atlanta and was later detained by police, and now bodycam footage of the incident has been released.
In the video uploaded by TMZ, you can see the Oscar-nominated director looks confused as he complies with the officer’s request of putting his hands behind his back.
“I’m trying to get money out of my own account,” he told the police in the video. The teller “never said it was a problem,” Coogler said, adding that he had used his bank card and PIN and had given her his ID.
As we per the gossip site, Coogler was detained after stopping in a Bank of America to make a transaction back in January. The director walked into the bank with shades and a COVID face mask and handed the teller a withdrawal slip that had a note written on the back. The note read, per the outlet: “I would like to withdraw $12,000 cash from my checking account. Please do the money count somewhere else. I’d like to be discreet.” The note made the teller suspicious so she called the cops for attempted robbery. Two cops arrived and they detained the two people who were waiting outside for Coogler and then came into the bank and handcuffed the director.
In a statement on Wednesday, Coogler said per The New York Times, “This situation should never have happened.”
He added that Bank of America “worked with me and addressed it to my satisfaction and we have moved on.”
Bank of America said in a statement: “We deeply regret that this incident occurred. It never should have happened, and we have apologized to Mr. Coogler.”
Coogler, who doesn’t have a personal social media account known to the public has fans sounding off on the situation on his behalf. Take a look at how Twitter is responding to the incident:
