Black youth leader was baby-sitting white kids. White woman called the cops, he says

A black youth leader from Marietta, Georgia, said a white woman confronted him, followed him home and called the police — all because he was babysitting two white children.

Now a Facebook Live video of his exchange with the police officer has been viewed nearly 200,000 times.

“B-W-B which I guess is the new thing, babysitting while black,” said the man, a youth mentor named Corey Lewis, according to CBS 46.

Lewis runs a youth mentoring business called “Inspired By Lewis,” which offers one-on-one mentoring, etiquette and social skills classes for children, according to its website. The organization’s goal is “to provide enrichment to socially challenged youth by promoting positive character development, self-awareness, and life skills that will cultivate our next generation of innovative leaders.”

Lewis said he was baby-sitting two white children who attended his classes, according to CBS 46, when he was confronted by a woman. He described the confrontation in several Facebook Live videos.

“We just came from Subway at Walmart. This lady over here, she’s following me,” he says, pointing the camera at a sedan waiting in the parking lot.

“This lady is following me because I got two kids in the backseat that (do) not look like me ... she asked to see the little girl I’m with so she can ask her if she knows who I am.”

He points the camera at the car, showing that it is still waiting in the lot.

“All because I got two kids in the backseat who do not look like me, this lady took it upon herself to say that she’s going to take my plate down and call the police. It’s crazy ... it’s 2018 and this is what I’ve got to deal with.”

Another video shows Lewis driving and pointing the camera back at what he says is the same woman in the same car following him to his neighborhood.

“I am being harassed and followed by this lady,” he says. “She followed me all the way home. She won’t pull up though ... Got these little kids scared, this lady’s following us.”

In the final video, a police car pulls up, and an officer gets out to speak with Lewis and the children.

“What’s up, man?” the officer says, getting out of the car.

“I’m being followed and harassed, that’s wassup,” Lewis says.

The officer smiles. “I’ve heard,” he says, and chuckles.

“We ate at Subway, at Walmart, went and got some gas. She pulled up talking about some .. ‘Are the kids okay?’ Why wouldn’t they be okay? No one’s yelling, no one’s screaming ... she left, came back and asked to see the little girl so she could ask her (if she knows) who I am.”

The officer asks to talk to the children and says he was called to do an “okay check.”

The girl tells the officer Lewis was baby-sitting them, had taken them to dinner and then the lady began following them. What the officer says next is largely inaudible, but he seems to say the woman called because she thought something was “suspicious.”

“Two white kids being with one black male,” Lewis says.

“Yeah,” the officer says.

Lewis says he works with kids every day for his business, and the officer asks the children several times if they are alright before saying “Alright, everything seems good. Everything seems good.”

The woman’s identity is still unknown.

Commenters on Facebook said the incident was a blatant example of profiling.

This story was originally published October 9, 2018 at 12:42 PM.