Black Men Might Want to Reconsider Being Good Samaritans

If you’re big, tall and black, you might want to think twice about being a Good Samaritan. Just ask Edwin McFarlane, a black 15-year-old from Florida, who's 6'3 and weighs 270 pounds. When Edwin reportedly tried to help a lost toddler in a store find her way back to her mother, he was depicted as a kidnapper and a pedophile and criminally charged.

Video surveillance at Burlington Coat Factory in Orlando shows Edwin, who came to the store with his mother, spotting a lost little girl and leading her throughout the aisles and eventually outside in search of her parents. When Gizelle Pierre, the girl’s mother, asked if anyone had seen her daughter, she was told that Edwin had taken the little Latina girl. Deputies arrived on the scene, and Pierre decided to press charges against Edwin — even though there was no evidence that he’d harmed her daughter. Though the charges against Edwin (who has no criminal record) have since been dropped, the damage done to him may very well last a lifetime.

Because Edwin's underage, the investigation of the incident should have remained confidential. But a TV station managed to nab a copy of a report. The result? Edwin’s arrest ended up making news headlines. What's worse, the Orange County State Attorney’s Office discussed Edwin’s school record in a public court hearing — a misuse of records, according to legal experts quoted by the Associated Press.

Not only has Edwin suffered having the intimate details of his life publicized, but he also had to endure a sexually explicit interrogation by authorities wanting to know if he’d molested the girl. That’s a lot for a 14-year-old — which is how old Edwin was in June when the incident occurred — to take. He’s described his ordeal as “humiliating.” That's one word for it.

To make amends, the Orange County Sheriff’s Office demoted Maj. Frank Fabrizio to captain and suspended him for leaking confidential information about the case. Sheriff Jerry L. Demings, an African American, also admitted to the Orlando Sentinel that “we made some mistakes during this.”

That's fine, but simply acknowledging these mistakes won’t reverse what Edwin has experienced. Even if Edwin’s attorney succeeds at having his record expunged, he's still publicly linked to some very ugly headlines. Now, when Edwin leaves his home, he says he’s watched wherever he goes.

Although the legal system and the media bear some of the blame in this situation, so too does the mother of the tot who got lost. Gizelle Pierre, after all, is the one who decided to press charges against Edwin. Let's say the person who’d come to her daughter’s aid hadn’t been large, black and male. Would Pierre have still assumed the worst? I doubt it, as does Edwin’s mother, who says that his size and race probably contributed to his horrible treatment.

The truth is that the public has been trained to view black males as criminals, no matter the circumstances. Even at the early age of 15, Edwin now knows that fact firsthand. “I didn’t realize how society was,” he told the AP. Acting as a Good Samaritan while black cost the teen his innocence.

Photo Credit: ktylerconk