Mount Vernon Chase Employees Under Fire For Calling The Cops On Mayor

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Mount Vernon Mayor Says He Was Racially Profiled By Bank Employees

The Mayor of Mount Vernon, New York, Richard Thomas, blasted Chase bank employees this week  for allegedly racially profiling him at a branch in White Plains.

Mayor Thomas held a press conference on Monday, April 29, to denounce the actions of JP Morgan Chase workers for calling the police on him a week earlier. According to Thomas, he was at the bank along with his chief of staff and a Mount Vernon Police detective as Thomas sought access to Mount Vernon’s online banking records.

“The response by the White Plains Police Department was resolved amicably after one of the responding officers recognized the Mount Vernon Police detective,” press advisor Lou Migliore stated, according to Westchester News 12. “Mayor Thomas believes that race played a role in the Chase employees calling the police. The two staffers who accompanied Mayor Thomas are Black and Hispanic.”

The mayor continued to fume during a press conference Monday afternoon and called the bank’s actions unacceptable. “As a mayor and as a young, well-educated black man living during this turbulent time in society where police are being called on black people for going about everyday life, this is unacceptable,” Thomas wrote in a letter to Chase CEO Jamie Dimon. “We’ve seen this happen to two black men at a Starbucks in Philadelphia. We’ve also seen this happen to Oregon Rep. Janelle Bynum while she was campaigning. Now it happened to me.”

Thomas also said that he filed a formal complaint with Chase over the incident. “We’ve seen a situation happen where the police are called on people of color, particularly Black people, for no apparent reason,” he continued during the press conference. “And one person said he has a gun, and it was kind of like, ‘What? What?’ Because when we came we announced who we were. We made it clear that the mayor travels with security for security purposes.”

A representative from JP Morgan Chase responded to the criticsm and denied that Thomas was racially profiled. The bank countered by saying one of the employees saw a plainclothes detective with a firearm on him but did not know he was a police officer. “Our staff acted appropriately,” responded bank spokesperson Joseph Evangelisti.

Thomas denies any claims that he and his staff caused a disturbance and that his detective never brandished his gun.