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Corey Lewis first noticed the woman as he was crossing the Walmart carpark in Marietta, Georgia on Sunday afternoon. She was sitting in a Kia sedan, he said, as he was driving the two kids, he was guarding his car.
By the time he had tied them up and ready to leave, he had taken out his phone and broadcasted live on Facebook while he was talking about how this strange woman had started harassing them after refusing to let her talk to the children, M Lewis, 27, said in an interview.
She followed him from the parking lot, the gas station across the street and from his home, where a Cobb County police officer interviewed Mr. Lewis, a black man, why he had brought two young children. are white.
"I did not know what was going on, what she wanted to do," Lewis said Tuesday, believing the woman had called the police because he was a black man walking with two white children. "I had the impression that my character was criminalized."
Sgt. Wayne Delk confirmed the incident by saying that an officer had answered a call from a woman Sunday afternoon. The police did not say if she knew his identity.
In a series of live videos on Facebook, Mr. Lewis recorded the incident, which kicked off at a Walmart parking lot and ended with the latest case of a black person reported to the police while she was carrying out a lawful activity, for example: golf, napping, shopping or even canvassing.
For Mr. Lewis, the episode was particularly troubling because it happened while he was working. Mr. Lewis owns his own business, Inspired By Lewis, where he looks after children five days a week through the youth mentorship program he created three years ago. His clientele is mostly white, he said, but until Sunday, he never imagined that this would give anyone a reason to call the police at his office. square.
He said that he had spent the afternoon watching Nicholas, age 6, and Addison, age 10, while their parents were out. After taking them to an indoor playground, he took them to eat at Walmart, he said.
After leaving the store, he and the kids were hanging out near his car when the woman stopped and asked if the kids were fine. Confused, Mr. Lewis replied, "Why would not they be O.K.?" She shrugged before leaving, he said, and then came back to speak to Addison. Mr. Lewis said that he had told her no and that she had insisted on getting her license plate number before going away, to then stop at his view.
Mr Lewis stated that he had gone to a nearby petrol station where she had followed him. Instead of bringing the children home, he drove them to his house, where he knew people would be outside.
Mr. Lewis continued to register a stopped police car and the officer asked him what was going on. "I am being followed and harassed," he said, to which the officer replied, "I heard about it."
The confrontation ended without a problem, the policeman apparently seeming convinced that the children – who offered similar explanations for what happened – are fine, but he asked for it. could register with their parents, said Mr. Lewis.
"It just dropped us from our chair," said their father David Parker on Tuesday. "We felt horrible for Corey."
Mr. Parker and his wife, Dana Mango, were at dinner when they received the call, and his wife had to be convinced that it was not a crime. farce, he said.
Lewis is a family friend and is well known in the community for his work with children, Parker said, describing him as an "American guy".
Mr. Parker stated that he wanted to give the woman the benefit of the doubt, but that his children had a good time with Mr. Lewis and that they were not in any apparent danger. Mr. Lewis also wore his signature shirt – a bright green t-shirt with his company logo on it.
"I do not think you have to watch too many episodes of" Law & Order "to realize that kidnappers do not usually wear a fluorescent green shirt," he said, adding that he felt that Mr. Lewis had handled the situation well.
Mr. Parker said that he had a moment of pride when, in an interview with a reporter, his daughter was asked if she wanted to say anything to this woman. "She said," I would just ask her next time to try to see us as three people rather than three skin colors, because we could be Mr. Lewis's adopted children, "he said.
On Tuesday, Lewis was working with children, saying he would not let this episode stop him from doing his job.
"You see these things, but they are like you're at a distance," he said. "But while it's really happening to you, it's amazing."
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