A white woman in Michigan tried to blame a Black man who she said was impersonating a Michigan cop during a traffic stop, except she was telling a fib that landed her in big trouble, The News-Herald reports.
On Tuesday, Faith Gentry, 17, was charged in 28th District Court with filing a false police report for making up the bogus story after she claimed a Black Wyandotte police officer pulled her over around 6:30 p.m. Feb. 28, which wasn’t true.
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During Gentry’s arraignment, she refused to speak and give a plea and stood silent. So, therefore, the judge took her dead air non-answer as a not guilty plea. A pre-trial hearing was scheduled for March 8 and a personal bond was set at $25,000.
Gentry, a student at Southgate Anderson High School was accompanied in court by her father and her attorney.
However, police said, she did come clean over the weekend and confessed to Southgate investigators that she lied. Investigators determined that “the story was not matching up with the facts.”
“Public safety is our main concern and we cannot have or tolerate (hoaxes) and fear being put into our residents’ minds,” a statement from Southgate police read. “The police officers out working the streets of Downriver cannot do their jobs (efficiently and effectively) with this type of behavior.”
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The sad part is that Gentry made the rounds on local TV news with her mother on March 1 and spread the elaborate lie on a Fox 2 segment saying a Black man at Fort Street and Eureka Road, near the border of Southgate and Wyandotte, stopped her and asked for her driver’s license.
She then said after he took her ID, he said he would mail her a ticket since his vehicle’s computer was broken. The ticket was allegedly going to be issued because her turning signal was out and the light over her license plate wasn’t working.
According to her attorney, Gentry turned herself in after a warrant was issued for her arrest.