Black Homeowner's Security Footage Shows Moment White Neighbor Accuses Him of 'Following' Her — at His Own Home (Exclusive)

Mar. 15, 2025

The Jenkins family.Photo:Courtesy of the Jenkins family

DaMichael Jenkins and Family. Security Footage of White Neighbor Accusing Him of Following Her in His Own Driveway Goes Viral

Courtesy of the Jenkins family

When DaMichael Jenkins first saw a woman with a stroller standing in his driveway upon his return home one night, he initially thought nothing of it.

“It’s typical to see kids and parents coming on and out of my house, as we have a young kid and a teenager,” he tells PEOPLE in a recent interview. “We have an open-door policy in the neighborhood.”

Jenkins first thought the woman was heading to his home for a playdate or to visit with his wife, and so he rolled down the window, he says, to see if she needed help finding the door.

“I asked if she needed help and she didn’t respond. Then she started walking toward the front door,” he says.

At that point, he began pulling in the driveway to park his car. That’s when, as security footage shows, the woman walked in front of Jenkins' porch and asked him, “Do you live here?”

DaMichael Jenkins.Courtesy of the Jenkins family

DaMichael Jenkins and Family. Security Footage of White Neighbor Accusing Him of Following Her in His Own Driveway Goes Viral

“I said, ‘Yes, I do.’ And she said, ‘I don’t believe that.’ " he continues. “That confused me … I just felt confused. Then she said again, ‘I don’t believe that.’ "

At that point, as Jenkins explains and security footage shows, the woman began quickly walking away from the porch, leaving behind her stroller and carrying one child in her arms while holding the other next to her. She then began running down the street and screaming “Help!”

“At that point, I was scared and I was fearful,” Jenkins says. “I realized she was running from me.”

Jenkins, however, wasn’t chasing the woman. Instead, he pulled into his garage and entered his home, finding his wife inside and attempting to explain the situation.

“I was in my office working on the other side of the house, so I didn’t hear anything,” Brittany, DaMichael’s wife, tells PEOPLE. “He came in and said, ‘There’s a White woman crying and screaming and running down the street.’ "

She continues: “I was confused and my heart dropped because we have a 17-year-old son who was at work. I knew he would be coming home soon and I knew it meant the police were going to come around the same time. I said, ‘What is she screaming for?’ and DaMichael said, ‘I don’t know.’ "

Brittany says the fear eventually overwhelmed the confusion for her. “I knew someone was going to come back. The police, someone … something was going to happen to us,” she says.

Fifteen minutes after Jenkins came home, Brittany opened the front door and walked outside.

Shortly after, the woman returned — this time, with her husband. Security footage from the Jenkins' home shows what happens next.

“Did someone come here?” Brittany asks the woman and her husband.

“That was my wife. Somebody chased her,” the husband then says.

The woman — who has since come forward publicly and identified herself as Michelle Bishop — then says a man in a gray truck had chased her, adding, “And so I come up and I’m going to pretend that I’m coming home. And so I … start walking to your back gate and he stops here and he goes, ‘Are you looking for someone?’ "

“Well that’s my husband,” Brittany then says. “That’s why — he lives here. He lives here. He came in and he said, ‘There’s a lady screaming.’ "

At this point in the security footage, Jenkins himself emerges from inside the house, walking out the front door of his home.

“She got all worried,” Bishop’s husband then says.

“I did,” Jenkins then responds. “You asked me did I live here and I said, ‘Yeah.’ "

As Brittany tells PEOPLE, Bishop’s demeanor was such that “it didn’t appear that she understood the depth of what had taken place.”

“And at that point, I didn’t know she had called 911,” Brittany adds.

In a statement to PEOPLE, Bishop confirms that she did call 911, saying: “After leaving the Jenkins' home, I ran to another neighbor’s home and called 911 that night. I explained to the operator that I thought I was being followed. I told the police I did not need to meet with an officer and they said they would do an area check. After realizing my mistake, I found the police doing an area check of the neighborhood and explained to them that it was a misunderstanding and that there was no issue.”

When the police ultimately arrived at the Jenkins' home, Brittany says she spoke to them while DaMichael remained inside.

Never miss a story — sign up forPEOPLE’s free daily newsletterto stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer​​, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories.

“For me and my husband, it’s unsettling and scary to have those interactions … because of us being a Black woman and a Black man with Black children,” Brittany says. “My hands started shaking, my heart started beating … I had to think, do I want to talk to the officer outside? Do I sit down, do I stand up? My husband hid in his own home because he was afraid.”

The situation ended shortly after, with Brittany explaining to the police that she suspected the incident was due to profiling. But the couple has remained both confused and fearful in the weeks since the late November incident.

“Our 17-year-old came home from work and saw how scared we were and when we explained what happened, he immediately sat down and said, ‘Mom, what if she had a gun? What if I was taking out the trash at the time? ' " Brittany says. “It was very emotional. Our younger son was also scared.”

Shortly after the incident, Brittany reached out to the neighborhood Homeowners’ Association, explaining the situation out of fear that it might happen again. After they asked her to send them any security footage she had, she did — but she says she has not heard from them since.

The couple tells PEOPLE they’ve lived in their Ohio home — which Jenkins, a builder, designed himself — for three years and that their neighbors have “been welcoming from the beginning.”

In the weeks since, the neighbors have continued to show their support, sending messages of encouragement.

But the Jenkins haven’t however, heard directly from Bishop herself — though she has shared her side of the story on social media, even before security footage of the incident was made public.

Just hours after the incident took place, Bishop went live on Facebook, telling her side of the story on a private neighborhood page.

“When we saw the apology online it was very — we didn’t understand it,” Brittany tells PEOPLE. “We have only heard from her via Facebook Lives. It didn’t make sense to us that she would go online and not connect with us privately outside of social media.”

Bishop has sinceshared another video to her public Facebook page, saying, “I wanted to come on again and reiterate my apology to DaMichael and Brittany Jenkins but also share with you guys the threats that my family is now receiving.”

“First and foremost, DaMichael and Brittany Jenkins, from the bottom of my heart and my family’s heart, I am so sorry for the way I made you guys feel that night,” she continues in the second video, which was posted after the security footage went viral, on Jan. 22. “I understand why you felt that way, I get it. I truly do. It was the worst timing and the biggest misunderstanding and from the bottom of my heart … I do. I seek forgiveness and I am very sorry.”

The Jenkins family.Courtesy of the Jenkins family

DaMichael Jenkins and Family. Security Footage of White Neighbor Accusing Him of Following Her in His Own Driveway Goes Viral

Bishop’s representative also echoed that she has been a target of death threats since going public on social media, supplying PEOPLE with some of the text messages and emails she has received.

Brittany explains that she and her husband only shared the security footage after exhausting all other options, and are hopeful that the situation could be something of a teachable moment. “We are very empathetic people. We all have implicit biases. I thought the next day [Bishop] would come over and say, ‘I messed up. How can I learn?’ "

After reaching out to the HOA, the Jenkins family and their neighbors penned a letter explaining what happened, posting it in the neighborhood mail room so others could be made aware.

“Less than 24 hours later, it was taken down,” Brittany says. “So it was posted a second time in the mail room. And then taken down again. We reached out to the HOA, posted a letter about the situation for those in the neighborhood — we went through every single avenue to make this right.”

More than a month later, they shared the security footage on social media, with Brittany saying it was “the last resort.”

“The goal was for the community to be whole. We felt welcome and knew this was an isolated event …but the goal was to shed insight so we can learn from each other,” she adds.

Adds Jenkins: “We took all the possible steps we could to keep this a community thing. We’ve reached out to neighborhood people, to the HOA, shared it to the Facebook community. Now that this thing has become a national matter, we need to use this as an example to save lives.”

While the situation is now a couple months behind them, Brittany says it remains a cloud over their family.

“I cry almost every night since this has happened. Our world is not the same anymore. We are unsettled and uncomfortable. I went to check the mail today and I was scared,” she adds.

Jenkins echoes that sentiment, noting that he has a close relationship to his neighborhood and his home, having built it from the ground up.

“I designed the house from scratch and built the house from scratch,” he says. “We have a lot of emotional attachment to our home.”

And while they didn’t expect the experience to become as viral as it has, Brittany reiterates they want to use it for good.

“I think it’s important to get that message out: this is significant,” she tells PEOPLE. “We did not ask for this publicity. We did not ask for someone to show up on our porch. But we can use this experience … to make it positive for all people. We don’t want this to happen to others.”

“As men, we often struggle with reacting, thinking irrationally …. When you’re presented with a life-threatening battle test, it’s not always easy to remain calm and not react, but that can ultimately save your family’s life and your own life,” he says. “And that is what I did.”

source: people.com