Ryan Coogler accused of bank robbery while withdrawing $12,000 from BOA

Source: Kevin Winter / Getty

Well, THIS is a story that we didn’t expect to be writing this morning. According to a new TMZ report, Black Panther director Ryan Coogler was placed in handcuffs in Atlanta after a shook-a** bank teller thought that he was robbing her Bank of America branch. An Atlanta Police Department report details an incident that took place back in January when Coogler walked into the bank to make a $12,000 withdrawal from his account.

Coogler walked to the counter wearing glasses and a protective mask when he handed a teller a bank slip with a note written on it that read:

“I would like to withdraw $12,000 cash from my checking account. Please do the money count somewhere else. I’d like to be discreet.”

Now, granted, handing a teller a note can be seen as a bit suspect but it was a bank slip that obviously would have had his name and account information on it in addition to the fact that Coogler would have had to supply a form of ID. Despite all that, when the teller, described as a “pregnant Black woman” went to take the transaction, some sort of alert was triggered and she went to her boss to report a robbery.

When police arrived, they detained 2 people who were in the car waiting on Coogler and put the filmmaker in handcuffs as well. After a bit of investigation, the cops realized that the teller had made a huge mistake and released all parties involved. However, as you might imagine, Coogler was not a happy camper and took names and badge numbers before leaving the property.

TMZ questioned Coogler about this incident and he told them:

“This situation should never have happened. However, Bank of America worked with me and addressed it to my satisfaction and we have moved on.” 

Dirty game. C’mon, sista.