On Friday’s episode of SiriusXM’s The Clay Cane Show, during a discussion on racism, actor Ving Rhames revealed that he was held at gunpoint in his house by the police. Apparently, the cops were responding to a purported burglary that happened in his Santa Monica home and thought he was the thief.
“This happened this year,” the actor said. “I open the door and there is a red dot pointed at my face from a 9-mm, and they say, ‘Put up your hands.’ Literally.”
Rhames was then taken outside, where one of the responding policemen identified Rhames not for his roles in Pulp Fiction or Mission: Impossible — Fallout, but because the officer’s son played basketball. The cop and Rhames’ sons had previously played each other in a game.
The episode frightened Rhames not just for his own life, but for his son’s. “What if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something, and you thought it was a gun,” he asked. “Just like, I don’t know, Trayvon had a bag of Skittles.”
Rhames said that according to the police, a neighbor called 911 to notify authorities that a “large black man” was robbing Rhames’ home. Afterwards, police accompanied Rhames to the neighbor’s house to find out what happened, but she said she didn’t make the call.
You can hear more about the incident in the clip below.
