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Travis Miller, a delivery driver in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, says a neighborhood’s homeowners’ association president blocked him into a gated community and demanded to know why he was there.
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Miller captured the ordeal on Facebook Live, in a video that lasts for 37 minutes that has been watched more than 170,000 times.
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The HOA official, who said his name was David Stewart, told Miller that he had called police on him after Miller refused to disclose customer information.
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After the HOA official left, Miller said he was afraid to leave the gated community, telling police: “I didn’t want to leave and have it seem like I was fleeing the scene or anything like that.”
A black delivery driver in Oklahoma City says a neighborhood’s homeowners’ association (HOA) president blocked him into the gated community and demanded to know why he was there and how he got in.
Travis Miller, a home appliance and furniture delivery driver, captured the ordeal on Facebook Live, in a video that’s now been watched more than 170,000 times.
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He told KFOR that he was making a delivery in the Ashford Hills neighborhood of Oklahoma City on Monday when a man claiming to be the president of homeowners’ association blocked him from exiting the gated community with his car.
Video of the incident shows the man, self-identified as David Stewart, repeatedly asking Miller why he was in the gated community. The video shows that a white car had been parked in front of Miller’s truck, so he couldn’t drive forward.
Miller refused to tell Stewart who he dropped packages off to in the neighborhood, citing customer privacy.
About 30 minutes into the Facebook video, another man joined Stewart, and asked Miller: “All we want to know is why you’re in here and who gave you the gate code. That’s all we need to know.”
Miller again told the men that he didn’t want to share personal information of customers, and told Facebook viewers that the men had called the police. The police don’t arrive during the video, but the Stewart eventually moved his vehicle out of Miller’s way.
“I guess they must have contacted the customer and the customer came around and they spoke for a minute and he moved out the way,” Miller can be heard saying in the video.
Miller then called police himself, telling dispatch what happened to him and making sure it was safe for him to leave the area.
“He said that he called the cops back and let them know that everything was clear but I didn’t want to leave and have it seem like I was fleeing the scene or anything like that,” Miller said.
‘I knew if I get out this truck, no matter what happened, I would have been in the wrong’
Miller told KOCO that the person he delivered items to had given him the key code for the gated community, and that when Stewart approached him, he kept his seatbelt on the entire time, locked his doors, and tried keeping his window up.
“I knew if I get out this truck, no matter what happened, I would have been in the wrong,” Miller told KOCO. “I always say to myself, ‘I’m going to go home to my wife and my kids.'”
The incident happened in the wake outrage over the death of Ahmaud Arbery, a black man who was gunned down while jogging in Georgia in February, and the death of Breonna Taylor, a black woman who was killed in a police shooting Kentucky in March.
Miller has received an outpouring of support online since his video went live. He told KOFR that he didn’t know why Stewart responded in the way that he did.
“I just know that emotionally, it was hard to maintain restraint, especially when I’m dealing with death in the family, two family members within two days of each other,” Miller said. “I just did the best I could to not make a bad situation worse.”
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