In a video circulating the web, four students from Florida A&M University, a historically black college in Tallahassee, are seen being threatened by a white man with a gun while waiting to enter the apartment building of their friend.
The footage shows an angry white man who claims to have a key to the building harassing the students before pulling out a gun to keep them from entering an elevator. The incident was captured by junior Isaiah Butterfield.
As BuzzFeed News reports, this took place late on Saturday night at a complex called Stadium Centre, marketed to FAMU students as a site for off-campus housing. Management later told residents that the white man in the video doesn’t even live there. “Firearms are prohibited on our property and we take this matter very seriously,” apartment management wrote residents, which Butterfield later sent to BuzzFeed. “Moreover, we are firmly committed to creating a diverse residential community that is inclusive and welcoming to all.”
Along with Butterfield, Stephen Brooks, Joshua Cosby, and Fitzroy Rhoden were attempting to go to a party of their friend Zavian Flowers, who recently moved into the building. As they waited outside, the man in the video began harassing them though they hadn’t done anything or even attempted to enter without their friend. Toward the end of the video, after the man pulls out his gun, Flowers appears and takes them up to the apartment.
“We tried to not let it blow our night, but it did,” Butterfield told BuzzFeed. “At the time it felt so unreal, but we slept on it and once we woke up in the morning and processed what happened, we decided to report it to the police.”
Police are still currently investigating, and so far no arrests have been made. FAMU is also conducting an investigation, since the building houses so many of the university’s students.
“People fly Confederate flags here and there are people who say off-the-wall stuff all the time because they feel that they can,” Butterfield told BuzzFeed while explaining that though the incident was stunning at the time, he is not shocked by the man’s behavior.
