A Connecticut man is accusing officers with the Bridgeport Police Department of racially profiling him after he was stopped while driving home from work in a rental car. The man posted a video of his interaction with the officers on TikTok, where it has racked up more than 700,000 views and sparked plenty of discussion over why his vehicle was checked in the first place.
According to the driver, who goes by @kingofconnecticut4 on TikTok, he was sitting at a red light when an officer beside him ran his license plate. The check revealed the rental car’s registration had expired in February, so the officer approached the vehicle to inform him.
In the viral clip, the man told the officer the vehicle was a rental. He claimed he had no way of knowing the registration was out of date and suggested the officer take the matter up with the rental company instead.
The officer, however, disagreed. He told the man that because he was the one operating the vehicle, it was his responsibility to make sure everything was in order. In response to the driver’s claim that he had no access to that information, the officer asked for his license. He then turned the vehicle’s registration paperwork toward the driver, pointing out the information he could have used to check its status.
To that, the driver replied, “I don’t look at that, Sir. When you sign the contract, they don’t give you that. You don’t know what car you’re gonna get, you don’t know what’s in the car.” He argued that no customer inspects a rental car’s registration before driving the vehicle and that responsibility should fall on the company renting it out.
Driver Questions Why His Plate Was Run
The two butted heads over the issue for a while before the officer eventually asked the man to step out of the vehicle. The officer then briefly inspected the vehicle with a flashlight before returning to his cruiser to continue his checks.
While the driver waited, a different officer came and spoke to him. The officer advised him to contact the rental company himself and ask for another vehicle. The driver agreed, but something still bothered him.
He asked the officer what had alerted them to run his plate in the first place. The officer assured him that plates are usually checked randomly and that his vehicle was not necessarily singled out.
That explanation did not appear to convince the man. In the video’s caption and his responses in the comments, he has maintained that the officers had not simply picked his car at random and that his plate was run because he was Black.
Netizens’ Reactions to Driver’s Run-In With Connecticut Police
Many viewers in the comments agreed that the driver should not be held responsible for the rental car’s expired registration. Connecticut law generally prohibits operating an unregistered vehicle on public roads, although responsibility and potential penalties can depend on the circumstances. Rental companies also have registration requirements for vehicles they offer to customers.
“He’s blaming YOU because enterprise forgot to register their car? Crazy,” one person asked incredulously. Another claimed, “25 years of renting cars and I have never checked the registration. The liability sits with the rental car company to make sure all their cars are legal. It’s a flipping business.” Someone else chimed in, “I’ve been renting cars for work for over a decade, I’ve never looked at the registration. This cop is full of it.”
Some believed racism was the only reason the driver’s plate was checked. “How would he know it was expired if he wasnt already looking for something specifically from him?” one commenter speculated. Another argued, “The cop is wrong because he did NOT have a reason to run the plate in the first place. That is racial profiling.”
A third alleged, “Cops are trained to target BLACKS at this point.” A fourth claimed, “His ego was killing him!! He wanted to arrest you the entire time for anything being black.”
At the same time, others supported the officers and believed the expired registration was ultimately the driver’s responsibility as the person behind the wheel. “Enterprise did not operate the vehicle on the highway! You did!!” one netizen said. Another agreed, writing, “You’re the operator.. its YOUR RESPONSIBILITY”
Following the lengthy encounter with the officers, the man said he was eventually allowed to leave without facing any consequences. He said he contacted the rental company over what happened, and they upgraded his vehicle at no additional cost.
