ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — Two young men believe they were racially profiled, when they were harassed and threatened with a gun by a woman in their own neighborhood, Channel 9's investigative reporter Daralene Jones learned.
Investigators said it happened in a Belle Isle subdivision, Conway Isle, last month, but the state attorney's office decided to recently file charges against Morgan Germanos.
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Germanos faces two charges of aggravated assault with a deadly weapons.
Cellphone video from one of the men captured the incident.
“You pulled a gun out on me. You pulled a gun out on us. Tell somebody that,” the man said to Germanos in the video.
The two men told Orlando police officers that they were walking back from a nearby gas station when Germanos followed them and kept verbally harassing them, demanding to know if they lived in the neighborhood. Eyewitness News confirmed one of the boys lives in the neighborhood.
One of the boy’s parents talked to Eyewitness News about how the incident gives them flashbacks of a much more tragic case.
“It saddens us. It's unfortunate our son cannot walk in his own neighborhood without being harassed by a neighbor. It makes me angry because he was doing nothing, and it's the same thing that happened to Trayvon Martin,” the parent who did not want to be identified said to Jones.
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Trayvon Martin was shot and killed, in Feb. 2012, by George Zimmerman, a self-proclaimed neighborhood watchman looking over his neighborhood that had been hit with burglaries. Zimmerman was found not guilty in the death of Martin.
Germanos’ husband told Eyewitness News that they’ve recently been on edge because of burglaries.
“What they said is a lie. We've been having break-ins in this neighborhood, and everybody has just been checking it out,” the husband told Jones.
“So she thought they were involved in break-ins in the neighborhood,” Jones asked.
“Just looking out for our community,” the husband said.
A review of Belle Isle police reports from the last six months confirm two burglary calls.
The mayor of Belle Isle also lives in the neighborhood. Public records show she, too, has raised concerns about recent burglaries.
Germanos' is expected in court next month.
We should mention this is not being investigated as a hate crime.
Cox Media Group
