Man Who Detained Black Teen While Biking Charged With False Imprisonment

Luis Orlando Santos Santiago, a 54-year old man from Florida who report­ed­ly stopped a Black teenage boy and detained him after false­ly accus­ing him of break­ing into cars, has been charged with false impris­on­ment. On the morn­ing of June 9, a teenage boy, who was not iden­ti­fied due to pri­va­cy con­cerns, was rid­ing his bicy­cle to go to bas­ket­ball prac­tice. Santiago then stopped him, inter­ro­gat­ing him and ask­ing him his home address. Santiago told the boy that he was being detained before call­ing 911. He told the dis­patch­er that he was an “off-duty offi­cer” and he detained the boy after alleged­ly catch­ing him steal­ing on video. He even accused that the boy stole the bicy­cle he was riding.

When police respond­ed to Santiago’s 911 call, the boy who was stopped was hyper­ven­ti­lat­ing while his hands were above his head, accord­ing to a state­ment. Hillsborough State Attorney Andrew Warren added the boy was afraid that Santiago had a gun since he kept reach­ing for his pock­ets.
The police imme­di­ate­ly ver­i­fied that the boy had not com­mit­ted any crimes when they arrived at the scene. They then drove the boy to his bas­ket­ball prac­tice. After an inves­ti­ga­tion, author­i­ties also found out that Santiago was not an offi­cer but a for­mer secu­ri­ty guard. He was arrest­ed and charged with false impris­on­ment for ille­gal­ly detain­ing the teenag­er.
Meanwhile, the boy’s fam­i­ly hopes “jus­tice [will] be served by hold­ing the per­pe­tra­tor account­able,” Titus O’Neil, a pro­fes­sion­al wrestler who is a friend and sup­port­er of the boy, told WFLA.
“It is our sin­cere hope and desire that the out­come from this sit­u­a­tion will show that there is zero-tol­er­ance for racial pro­fil­ing and harass­ment in Hillsborough County, and that zero tol­er­ance will extend through­out our state and our coun­try,” O’Neil added.