Ryan Coogler is in Atlanta shooting the follow-up to his highly-regarded film "Black Panther." Yet, he's making news for what happened far from the movie set.
We are learning more details about what happened to Coogler inside an Atlanta bank branch on January 7, 2022. It's the day that Coogler was detained by Atlanta police responding to a call about a man trying to rob the bank.
Coogler told the officers that he'd gone into the Bank of America branch on West Paces Ferry Road in Buckhead to withdraw funds in order to pay one of his employees who likes to be paid in cash.
Not wanting the entire bank to know how much money he needed to withdraw, Coogler says he wrote a note to the teller instead, asking her to be discreet. He wanted to withdraw $12,000 from his account. He was wearing sunglasses, a hat, and a mask. What happened next is when Coogler's plan turned bad.
The teller, seen in police dashcam video, says that an alert flashed on Coogler's account when she attempted to complete the transaction. She goes on to say that each time she tried to ask Coogler a question, he kept saying "read the note". She says that she became nervous and that's when she approached her manager, and the police were called.
Video shows officers placing Coogler in handcuffs. He is heard asking "is there any reason y'all doing this bro?" as he's escorted to the outside of the bank. It was then determined that the movie director being suspected of being a bank robber was a "mistake" according to police.
Comments on social media are split about Coogler's detainment
Comments on social media are split about whether the bank teller should have directed Coogler to a manager instead of calling the police. Said one, "How many banker robbers come in with valid ID, Bank Card, and valid PIN to an account no matter what they had on? With the crime in (the) Buckhead area I get why he was trying to tell the teller DON’T COUNT MY DAMN MONEY OUT LOUD…..Especially $12,000. Detain him is one thing, but to put him in handcuffs and in the back of a police car is something totally different. The bank and APD both were wrong on so many levels on this one." While others blame Coogler for wearing sunglasses, a hat, mask, and for writing a note. As one commented "Coogler knows better, and we ALL should know better, as sad as it sounds, there is just some stuff we CANNOT do! No matter how much money we got!! Period!!!"
No matter how anyone else feels about the situation, Coogler told Variety Magazine that the bank addressed the matter to his satisfaction and that he has moved on.