Man demands black woman show ID at pool

RALEIGH, N.C. — A woman says she was racially profiled by a man wanting her to provide identification to prove she belonged at a private community pool in North Carolina on the Fourth of July.

Jasmine Edwards posted video of an exchange between herself, a man she refers to as Adam, and a couple of Winston-Salem police officers to Facebook on Wednesday afternoon. The video — which Edwards captioned “Racial profiling at its worst!” — had been viewed more that 4.3 million times by Friday morning.

The Glenridge Homeowners Association told the Winston-Salem Journal the man’s name is Adam Bloom and that he was the pool’s chairman. Both Edwards and Bloom live in the neighborhood, according to the Journal report.

The video begins with Edwards, who says she is black, asking the man identified as Bloom, who is white, if there is an ordinance that says she has to show ID to enter the pool.

“Where does it say that I have to show an ID to use my pool, my own pool?” Edwards asks.

The man points to a sign outside the Glenridge Community Pool, but it says nothing about providing identification.

“Nobody else was asked (for) their ID,” Edwards says. “I feel this is racial profiling. I’m the only black person here, with my son in the pool, right? And, he walked only to me to ask for my ID.”

In response, the man identified as Bloom replied that he asks for IDs a couple of times per week.

One of the police officers can then be heard asking if there is a swipe card to enter the pool, to which the woman replies, “Yes ... that’s how I got in.”

“If she has a card to get in the pool, I believe that that should be enough,” the officer says.

The man identified as Bloom then asks police to test her gate card to validate that it works, and the woman agrees to let police try it on the entrance. The light on the scanner turns green and the door unlocks, the officer says.