Chase Customer Arrested for Banking While Black

I've heard of driving while black, but never banking while black. This story takes racial relations back to the 1950s. In a week when David Duke announced he wants to trade his

, this reminder of not-so-subtle racism popped up in America. Chase Bank

is under fire this week after one of its customers was arrested for attempting to cash a Chase-issued check at a Chase bank branch. The story begins in June 2010, when Chase customer Ikenna Njoku attempted to cash a cashier's check

in the amount of $8,463.21. The cashier's check was issued by Chase after the bank received a $9,000 plus direct deposit for Njoku from the government. The deposit was Njoku's tax refund from the IRS. The problem for Njoku was that his account had been recently closed for being overdrawn. Chase took $600 from the direct deposit and issued Njoku the cashier's check for the balance. When he brought the cashier's check into the bank to cash it, he was hassled, mistreated, and assumed to be a criminal. “I was embarrassed,” Njoku said. “She (the teller who handled his transaction) asked me what I did for a living. Asked me where I got the check from, looked me up and down—like ‘you just bought a house in Auburn, really?' She didn't believe that,” he said. Auburn's population demographics data show the city is approximately 2% African-American. The banker, suspecting Njoku was trying to defraud the bank by cashing a check issued IN HIS NAME BY THAT VERY BANK, kept the check, Njoku's driver's license, credit card, and called her bank's support line. The next day, when Njoku again returned for the money that Chase owed him, he was arrested for fraud. Why? Despite 24 hours to clear up that the check was legitimately issued by the very company whose branch building the teller was standing in, Chase employees STILL suspected Njoku of forgery (a felony) and called the police. Forgery. This I suspect is a fancy way of saying "black". After all, the refund was so large because he had bought a house in a predominantly white city. He was a construction worker driving a ten-year-old car, and cashing a check for nearly $9,000. It gets worse. Njoku was arrested on a Thursday. Chase, realizing its error entirely too late, figured out on Friday that it had just imprisoned an obviously innocent man. They called the detective handling the case and left a voice mail,

. According to a lawsuit filed on behalf of Njoku, Chase also had his car towed from their parking lot. The towing led to impound charges, which Njoku could not pay because Chase still had Njoku's $8,463.21. He also had the slight disadvantage of being locked in a jail cell. The vehicle, which was nearly paid off, was repossessed due to nonpayment while Chase held Njoku's $8,463.21. It was also his means of transportation to work, so he lost his job. To recap: It seems like because he bought a house in a "white" neighborhood, and because he had a moderate income and drove an older car, Njoku was (allegedly) profiled as a forger despite cashing a Chase check at a Chase bank. The bank, after taking an entire day to investigate (a ten-minute phone call, at best) still managed to have their customer arrested. Then, after realizing their error, Chase allegedly didn't bother to call every police officer they could find (including, duh, the city's main police phone line) until they got their customer released from jail. He lost his car, lost his job, spent a long weekend in jail, and it still took Chase nearly two months to give the man his money. Would this have happened to a middle-class white person? That's for you to decide. As for Njoku? He'll take his business elsewhere. Will you?