The last thing Kametra Barbour was expecting while driving with her four young kids in Forney, Texas on Aug. 9, was to be pulled over by police at gunpoint and handcuffed.
As it turned out, it was a case of mistaken identity, as the cops were on the hunt for “a beige or tan colored Toyota occupied by four black males” in response to a 911 caller who said the men were waiving a gun out of the car’s window.
The problem is that, Barbour was driving a…burgundy Nissan Maxima.
The dash-cam footage from the police cruiser shows the cops telling Barbour to exit her vehicle with her hands on her head. ABC13 News shared the transcript from the traffic stop:
Officer: “Driver let me see your hands everybody stick their hands out the window.”
Barbour: “What is wrong?”
Officer: “I’ll tell you in a minute.”
After handcuffing her, Barbour asks:
Barbour: “What is wrong? My kids!”
Officer: “How old are they?”
Barbour: “They’re six and eight and ten, nine. What are we doing?”
Officer: “Hold on a second, okay?”
Barbour: “What is going on? Oh my God, you will terrify my children.”
Officer: “We got a complaint of a vehicle matching your description and your license plate, waving a gun out the window.”
At that point, and after one of the kids aged six came out of the car, the police quickly realized their mistake.
Officer 1: “Do they look young to you?”
Officer 2: “They do to me.”
Officer 1: “Huh?”
Officer 2: “They do to me.”
Officer 1: “Yep, they’re young.”
Officer 1: “Gun down, gun down, gun down!”
In the video, we hear one of the youngsters ask, “Are we going to jail?”, to which one of the officers replies, “No one is going to jail”. Another officer then tries to calm down the kids: “Hey, stop crying. It’s okay. It’s okay. Everything’s fine now,” we hear him say.
According to a second report from ABC, Forney police apologized to Barbour, but they defended their actions in a statement:
“The officers acted accordingly and professionally based on the information they were given … and they adjusted their methods accordingly when the situation presented itself to be otherwise.”
Barbour, on the other hand, says she still can’t get over the episode:
“Every time I listen to and hear or think about it, it bothers you,” she told the news station. “I can’t just say, ‘I’m fine. It’s OK. It’s not a big deal.’ It is.”