An Iowa football player says he was “fearing for his life” when he came face to face with five police officers—four of them with guns trained on him—at an Iowa city park.
Faith Ekakitie, a defensive lineman for the University of Iowa, was playing the viral virtual app Pokemon Go. Unfortunately for him, a nearby bank had just been robbed by a man fitting his description.
Ekakitie recounted the bizarre incident in an extended Facebook post.
“Today I was surrounded and searched by approximately five Iowa City Police Officers. My pockets were checked, my backpack was opened up and searched carefully, and I was asked to lift up my shirt while they searched my waistband. Not once did they identify themselves to me as Iowa City Police officers, but with four gun barrels staring me in the face, I wouldn’t dare question the authority of the men and woman in front of me,” he said.
However, there are two sides to every story. So in the same post, Ekakitie narrated the event again, but this time from the vantage point of police looking for a suspect described as a large black male, wearing all black, with something on top of the head, and armed.
“As they drive past an Iowa City park that was less than 3 minutes away from the bank that was just robbed, they notice a large black man, dressed in all black, with black goggles on his head. They quickly move to action and identify themselves as the Iowa City police and ask me to turn around and place my hands up. I do not comply, they ask again, and again no response from me. So they all draw their guns and begin to slowly approach the suspect.”
