Jay Pharoah Shares Video of LA Officer Kneeling on His Neck

Saturday Night Live alum Jay Pharoah has shared a video in which he was recently stopped by the police while jogging in Los Angeles. The security camera footage, which he posted on Friday, shows four officers stopping Jay with their guns drawn, ordering him to the ground before one of the officers began kneeling on his neck. The incident occurred in April, a week before news broke of the February killing of Ahmaud Arbery. In the Instagram clip, Jay spoke about what happened, saying, “I could have easily been an Ahmaud Arbery or a George Floyd.”

Jay also opened up about the encounter in an interview with CBS’s The Talk, which will air in its entirety on Monday, June 15. He detailed the experience, saying he was first approached by one officer who told him to get down. “Three more officers drove up, hopped out of the car immediately, guns blazing,” he said. “It’s hot, corona is definitely something to be worried about, the police officers didn’t have on gloves, they didn’t have on masks. They just said, ‘Get on the ground.’ They said I fit the description of a Black man with gray sweatpants and a gray shirt. The officer literally just looked at my clothes and said, ‘You fit the description.’ When they put me in cuffs, after they were all on me, an officer put his knee on my neck . . . It was totally gratuitous. They didn’t have to do that.”

The actor told the police to Google his name, saying, “you will see that you made a big mistake.” The officers then let Jay go after receiving a call confirming that the actual suspect had been apprehended. “I was just trying to exercise,” Jay said. “It could have easily turned into another situation if I wasn’t who I am. And the point here is being Black in America, is just that: being Black in America. Other people can’t level with the same fears that I have. Leaving the house, we should not have to fear going to the grocery store, going to get some gas, running down the street. It’s called human civility. That’s what it is. It’s about being a human.”