Texas Man Gives Money To Homeless Man, Gets Arrested
A Texas man gave some spare change to a homeless man — and was arrested for it. It isn’t very often that a good deed can almost give you a criminal record, but that’s what happened to Greg Snider of Houston, Texas.
Snider was sitting in his car in the parking lot making a business call when a homeless man approached him and asked for some change. He had 75 cents handy and gave it to the other man, not knowing that police were watching. Snider thought he was doing a favor for someone who needed the money more than he did, and had no idea what was about to happen.
As Snider pulled out of the parking lot and reached the freeway, police lights flashed and he was ordered to pull over. Greg Snider recalled the confrontation in an interview with the local news:
“He’s screaming. He’s yelling. He’s telling me to get out of the car. He’s telling me to put my hands on the hood… They’re like, ‘We saw you downtown. We saw what you did.’ And I was like, ‘Are you kidding me? I gave a homeless man 75 cents.'”
The police allegedly thought the Texas man had given the homeless man drugs. It could have been the sequence of events that looked suspicious; after receiving the money, the homeless man walked away from the car and pulled out a baggie with a mysterious substance in it. It is unknown exactly why the police allegedly came to the conclusion they did.
The Texas police allegedly dragged Snider out of his car and put him in handcuffs while he allowed them to search the car. Ten more cruisers showed up while he sat in a police car watching for around an hour, and the police came away from the search empty-handed.
@BAYONNEBERNIE ONLY IN TEXAS! Man gives change to homeless person, is handcuffed and held by police for an hour http://t.co/7QCFSj552h
— BayonneBernie (@bayonnebernie) January 18, 2014
Texas man Greg Snider was not happy about the damage the police had allegedly done to his car or that they were allegedly laughing off their mistake afterward.
Snider filed a complaint against the Texas police department over the misunderstanding, and there have been no comments from the police themselves. The Texas police did confirm that they had received the complaint.
Do you feel the Texas police crossed a line arresting Snider for his good deed?
