'Babysitting While Black' Case: Woman Told Man ‘Things Look Weird’ Before Calling 911 on Him
A white couple whose black babysitter was questioned by police after a white woman called 911 are speaking out — and expressing saddened disbelief about the incident.
David Parker and Dana Mango asked their longtime friend, Corey Lewis, to watch their children while they went out to dinner. Lewis took the children, ages 6 and 10, to Walmart. In the parking lot, an unidentified white woman approached Lewis, who is black.
Subsequently, police stopped Lewis, who explained that Parker and Mango had asked him to look after their white children.
“We were at dinner, and I saw that Mr. Lewis had called,” Mango told Good Morning America. “I called back and a police officer answered the phone. The police officer was trying to explain that he was there with my kids and that they were OK, but he wanted to confirm that I had given permission to Mr. Lewis to be with them.”
Mango said that the officer seemed apologetic. “I think he was embarrassed,” she tells GMA. “After he spoke to me and confirmed that everything was all right, he let them go.”
A spokesman for the Cobb County Police Department confirmed one of their officers pulled Corey Lewis’ car over Sunday afternoon in response to a call. The spokesman did not have information on details of the incident, but Lewis documented the encounter on Facebook Live.
Lewis also appeared on GMA, and described how the woman confronted him.
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“She said, ‘Things look weird,’ and then she drove off,” Lewis said. The woman then followed Lewis and the kids in the car while calling 911.
Parker and Mango are incredulous that their friend was stopped.
“I said, ‘Are you saying that because there’s an African American male driving my two white kids, that he was stopped and pulled over and questioned?’ and he said, ‘I’m sorry ma’am, that’s exactly what I’m saying,” Mango told CBS 46.
In the interview with CBS46, Parker said Lewis was stopped for “B-W-B, which I guess is the new thing, babysitting while black.”
Mango also added that her children were frightened for Lewis during the incident. “They said they were scared that they would say the wrong thing and cause him to get arrested,” she told GMA.
“It truly took me several minutes to believe that it was real,” she added. “I was just in a state of disbelief.”
