City of Rialto releases 911 call on Airbnb renters that sparked racial profiling allegation

ByABC7.com staff KABC logo
Friday, May 25, 2018
City of Rialto releases 911 call that sparked racial profiling allegation
Amid claims of racial profiling, the City of Rialto released the 911 call made by a resident reporting Airbnb renters in her neighborhood.

RIALTO (KABC) -- Amid claims of racial profiling, the City of Rialto has released the 911 call made by a resident reporting Airbnb renters in her neighborhood.

On April 30, an neighbor became suspicious and called to report strangers carrying luggage out of a home across the street.

"Hi, I'm observing a young black man at one of my neighbor's homes walking out with luggage" she tells the police dispatcher.

That man was Komi-Oluwa Olafimihan, who had been renting the house with friends Donisha Prendergast and Kelly Fyffe-Marshall, who are also black, plus an additional friend who is white.

"I literally walked out of the house, and saw the lady looking through the bushes," said Fyffe-Marshall in body cam footage released by Rialto police. "(I knew) she was going to call the police."

Prendergast, who is the granddaughter of Bob Marley, called the encounter an "indignity." An attorney for the renters maintains that their rights were violated.

Rialto Mayor Deborah Robertson, however, disagrees.

"I firmly believe this incident was not a case of racial profiling," Robertson said.