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6 year oldMISSION Impossible actor Ving Rhames said he opened his front door two years ago to find a red dot pointed at his forehead — as police held him at gunpoint because a neighbour had called 911 to report a “large black man” was breaking into the house.
Rhames, who plays computer hacker Luther Stickell in the action flick franchise, recounted being home alone at his Santa Monica property watching ESPN when he heard a knock on the door and opened it to find a gun pointed at him.
“I open the door and there is a red dot pointed at my face from a 9mm,” the star, who played gang boss Marsellus Wallace in Pulp Fiction, said on the Clay Cane Show on Sirius XM on Friday. “They say, ‘Put up your hands.’”
Harlem-born Rhames, 59, said three officers with the Santa Monica Police Dept., the police captain and a police dog, ordered him to step outside — but the situation was diffused when the police chief recognised him. Rhames’ teenage son, who goes to Brentwood High School had played against the captain’s son at Crossroads High School.
“He said it was a mistake and apologised,” Rhames said, adding that he was still shaken.
The officers told Rhames a woman who lived across the street had called them to say a large black man was breaking into the house.
But when the actor and two officers went over to the home, the neighbour denied having made the call, Rhames said.
“Here I am in my own home, alone in some basketball shorts. Just because someone called and said a large black man is breaking in, when I opened up the door a 9mm is pointed at me,” he said.
“My problem is, and I said this to them, what if it was my son and he had a video game remote or something and you thought it was a gun?”
Santa Monica police on Saturday confirmed to People the incident happened on July 29, 2016 — and said officers sometimes have their weapons drawn in suspected burglaries because they can get violent.
“We got a call from several neighbours indicating that they thought what they were looking at was a burglary in the home and we responded within minutes,” said Lieutenant Saul Rodriguez. “As soon as we discovered it was Mr Rhames, we de-escalated immediately and informed him what happened.”
This story originally appeared on the New York Post and is republished here with permission.
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