Haitian superstar artist Wyclef Jean was handcuffed and briefly detained by deputies in Los Angeles on Tuesday after they allegedly mistook him for a suspect in a robbery near the studio where he had been working.
In a short video message on Twitter early in the morning, the musician was shown standing in the dark next to a patrol car with his hands behind his back. It was unclear who was shooting video.
“L.A., right now, coming from the studio,” Mr. Jean said. “Y’all see the police have handcuffs on me. They just took off my Haitian bandanna. That’s what’s going on right now with Wyclef in L.A. right now. The L.A.P.D. have me in cuffs for absolutely nothing.” ~Wyclef Jean
Wyclef also posted several tweets documenting what occurred during his detainment indicating that he was never told why he was being handcuffed, that he identified himself and that they had the wrong person but no one listened or seemed to care until other officers arrived on the scene to inform them of their gross error.
Sgt. C. Duncan, an officer with the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department in West Hollywood, confirmed that Mr. Jean had been briefly detained. The episode started just after 1 a.m. Pacific time, when deputies were investigating a report that a man and a woman had been robbed at gunpoint and beaten at a Sunset Boulevard intersection.
LAPD another case of mistaken identity. Black man with red bandana robbed a gas station as I was in the studio working but im in handcuffs? pic.twitter.com/vjRfJUkooA
— Wyclef Jean (@wyclef) March 21, 2017
In a telephone interview with the New York Times, Sgt. Duncan said that the suspect was described as a “black man with a dark hoodie who fled in a gold or tan Toyota.” According to deputies, Wyclef was wearing a Haitian bandana and the victims said that the suspect had also been wearing a red one (except the Haitian bandana would have been blue, red and white…I’m just saying!)
Just goes to show you that it really doesn’t matter who you are or how famous you are as a black man in America you can be a suspect on any given day.
