GLENDALE, AZ — Three men visiting Arizona were detained by police after learning that the vehicle they rented from a popular car-sharing app Turo was reported stolen.
Jeff Addo and Kwab Asante shared with us their encounter with Glendale Police Department officers who stopped them outside a Raising Cane's restaurant last month.
“Never had a firearm pointed at me ever in my life,” said Addo. “We're like, what's happening? We're confused. We're not from here. We don't know what's going on.”
The men were in town from the Washington, D.C. area for a baby shower and decided to rent a car from Turo, which is an app that lets you rent a car someone else owns.
You could hear Addo on the body camera video telling the officer he’s from out of town.
“I'm going to my kid, man, I don’t want no problems,” Addo said.
An officer responds to Addo, telling him that they will explain what’s happening to them, saying, “Hopefully you guys walk out of here."
“No thoughts crossed our mind that we might be in a stolen vehicle," Asante said.
Asante told ABC15 that this was not their first encounter with Turo, but would be their last.
He remembers walking out of Raising Cane’s to the rental car when the first officer told him to get on the curb.
“At that moment, I was in fear for my life. I had no idea what would happen next, and I had never been in a situation that I had a gun drawn on us,” said Asante.
When officers revealed that they were driving a stolen car, Asante told the officer to get his phone.
“First thing I said to him was, "Get my phone, get my phone. I have the agreement on my phone." I get the phone out, I'm cuffed. So I have to give [the officer] my password to unlock it," Asante said.
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Turo tells the ABC15 Investigators that this should never have happened.
“After learning about this incident, we discovered that the host had previously reported this vehicle as stolen, but it was not removed from the police's stolen vehicle database after it was recovered,” a statement read.
“Three young [..] African American males in a stolen car riding around. I mean, I'm sure you've seen stories like that before that didn't have happy endings. So of course that was going through our heads,” said Asante.
The men have a lot of unanswered questions for Turo about how exactly this happened.
“We need to know what went wrong. Like who made that mistake because there was a mistake in there,” said Addo.
A spokesperson for Turo said that their terms of service prohibit hosts from sharing cars previously reported as stolen before they are removed from law enforcement databases as stolen.
They went on to say, "[They] are doing everything possible to reinforce our safety and communications protocols with our hosts because nothing matters more to us than keeping our guests safe.”
“If anyone would have made the wrong move... If they thought we had weapons... Anything. So to be put in that situation is something that's unforgivable - 100%,” said Asante.
A spokesperson for the Glendale Police Department said police handled the encounter in a “very civil manner.”
It was learned that the car was stolen out of Phoenix.
The Phoenix Police Department said that there were a dozen keys taken from a business that led to multiple cars being stolen.
The department did not identify who the suspects were but said that they have leads on the case, so they could not share the description of the suspects.
The three men were released by Glendale police after they shared verification of their Turo rental.
“We walked away not happy, walked away grateful for our lives,” said Addo, “because it wasn't happy at all.”
A spokesperson for the Glendale Police Department said the officers followed police policies.
“Everyone walks away from this unscathed except for us,” said Asante. “Turo walks away unscathed, saying... they filed a report. The Glendale PD walks away unscathed, saying that they followed protocol. We are going to be the ones that have to live with this trauma.”
FULL STATEMENT FROM TURO:
"Mr. Asante and his brothers endured an awful experience that never should have happened. After learning about this incident, we discovered that the host had previously reported this vehicle as stolen, but it was not removed from the police's stolen vehicle database after it was recovered. Our terms of service prohibit hosts from sharing cars previously reported as stolen before they are removed from law enforcement databases as stolen. We've refunded Mr. Asante fully and are doing everything possible to reinforce our safety and communications protocols with our hosts because nothing matters more to us than keeping our guests safe."
