A black legislator in Oregon says she was canvassing a neighborhood she represents Tuesday when someone reported her to police as a possible burglar.
Rep. Janelle Bynum says she was approached by a sheriff’s deputy and learned about the emergency call while she was out knocking on doors in Clackamas, a predominantly white community south of Portland.
“Big shout out to Officer Campbell who responded professionally to someone who said that I was going door to door and spending a lot of time typing on my cell phone after each house – aka canvassing and keeping account of what my community cares about!” Bynum, 43, wrote in a Facebook post.
The post included a smiling selfie she took with the uniformed patrol officer.
“I asked to meet my constituent who thought I was suspicious, but she was on the road by then. The officer called her, we talked and she did apologize,” Bynum added in her post.
A Democrat running for a second term in the fall, Bynum told The Oregonian she was on the second to last home on her list of 30 addresses Tuesday when the deputy approached her at around 5:10 p.m.
“I don’t believe this,” she recalled thinking when she saw him.
He asked if she was selling something and said someone called to say it appeared she was casing the neighborhood while on her phone.
“It was just bizarre,” Bynum told the newspaper.
“It boils down to people not knowing their neighbors and people having a sense of fear in their neighborhoods, which is kind of my job to help eradicate,” she said. “At the end of the day, it’s important for people to feel like they can talk to each other to help minimize misunderstandings.”
The Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday.
Bynum was elected to the Oregon House of Representatives in November 2016 and represents District 51, which includes east Portland, Gresham, Boring, North Clackamas, Damascus and Happy Valley, where she lives.
The Tuesday incident unfolded amid a backdrop of other recent high-profile cases of callers reaching out to police with complaints against black people simply living their lives.
In one such incident, an Ohio neighbor reportedly called police on a 12-year-old boy mowing a lawn.
In May, a woman in southern California called 911 on Bob Marley’s granddaughter and her friends as they left an Airbnb rental the morning after a concert in the area. The woman said the group appeared to be burglars.
Bynum said that though the woman who called police on her apologized, she declined to say where she lived.
Bynum said she didn’t know the woman’s race.
“We all know that we’re not in a society that is perfect, and we have wounds that still need to heal, but at the end of the day, I want to know my kids can walk down the street without fear,” Bynum told The Oregonian.
Bynum, a married mother of four, said she will continue her campaign canvassing and still hopes to meet the caller in person one day.
“I hope everyone gets a good look at my face, because I’m coming to your door,” she told the newspaper.
