Woman gets $385 ticket for talking too loud on sidewalk, she says race is the reason

EASTPOINTE, Mich. (FOX 2) - Diamond Robinson says she was walking up and down Cushing Street where she lives in Eastpointe talking on her phone Thursday. That was when she says one of her neighbors approached her.

UPDATE: Eastpointe police say woman ticketed $385 for talking loudly refused to participate in investigation

Robinson said the woman asked 'Do you think that you can get off your phone or talk lower.'

"One of those things she said," Robinson said. "And I said 'Get out of my face,' and I proceeded to walk past her. She is saying whatever she is saying,  three minutes later, Eastpointe police pulls up."

So Robinson started doing a Facebook Live video.

"And I hope you know this is all being recorded," she said in the video to the officers.

The woman, who called the police, had just moved to the neighborhood within a couple of weeks ago and is white. Robinson said she was targeted because she is Black.

"I'm not doing anything wrong by walking up and down the street talking on my phone," Robinson said in the video.

But as Robinson continued to record, the police officers wrote her a ticket.

"I get a ticket for being a public nuisance because I'm talking too loud on my phone," she said in the video. "That's why I got a ticket?"

Diamond Robinson's ticket

And that ticket isn't cheap - $385.

"There's no way police should be called on me when I am on my own property, in my own neighborhood, on my own block," Robinson said.

She said she plans to fight the ticket, and because she's so upset about the whole ordeal, she is now having security cameras installed outside her home.

As far as broadcasting everything on Facebook Live, she says she felt like she had no other choice.

The police officer delivering the ticket to Diamond Robinson.

"A lot of these things are being pushed under the rug and they don't need to," she said. "We can sit here all day and we can chant, we can riot, and we can do all of those things (but) that is not going to make a change if you don't speak up at that time, at that moment."

Her message to the woman who called the police: "Leave me alone, what's going on, are you upset? What did I do to you?"

The neighbor did not want to speak about the issue, but simply said the fine "speaks for itself."

Diamond Robinson

A police officer was asked about the steep fine, and he said "She will have her day in court."