Trayon Christian, a Queens resident, was targeted by staffers at Barneys and NYPD officers after buying an expensive belt, he says.
Christian, 19, bought a $349 belt at Barneys Madison Avenue location, but was detained by police officers who didn’t think a young black man could afford such a belt, he said.
Christian lives with his mom in Corona in the Queens borough of New York City, and studies engineering at the New York City College of Technology, where he has a work-study job, reported the New York Daily News.
After getting paycheck, he went to buy the Ferragamo belt, after seeing it on a lot of his favorite celebrities.
But after leaving the store after the purchase, he was stopped less than a block away by police, who told him that someone from Barneys had called and said that he was using a fake card.
“I showed them my school ID and my driver’s license,” said Christian, who was 18 at the time.
“I kept thinking, ‘Why is this happening to me?’” he said.
“The detectives were asking me, ‘How could you afford a belt like this? Where did you get this money from?’” he said.
He was handcuffed and held in a holding cell for about two hours.
He was later released. A NYPD spokeswoman said that Christian was detained for about 40 minutes.
Christian has filed a lawsuit against the NYPD.
