A man sued TCF Bank for race discrimination, alleging they called four police officers when all he was attempting to do was deposit lawsuit checks.
According to authorities, the bank’s computer system interpreted Sauntore Thomas’ checks as bogus. Tom Wennerberg, TCF Bank spokesman, said Thursday that the bank detests racism and it was not an element in how TCF handled Thomas’ situation. He stated the checks Thomas submitted showcased a watermark that read VOID when they were digitized in a web viewer.

Thomas isn’t trying to hear it, though, claiming the check cleared 12 hours later. He’s angry that two officers grilled him inside the bank, while two others stood outside on guard. “I didn’t deserve treatment like that when I knew that the check was not fraudulent,” Thomas told the local reporters. “I’m a United States veteran. I have an honorable discharge from the Air Force. They discriminated against me because I’m black. None of this would have happened if I were white.”
Thursday afternoon, the bank issued an apology: “We apologize for the experience Mr. Thomas had at our banking center. Local police should not have been involved. We strongly condemn racism and discrimination of any kind. We take extra precautions involving large deposits and requests for cash and in this case, we were unable to validate the checks presented by Mr. Thomas and regret we could not meet his needs.”
Deborah Gordon, Thomas’ lawyer, said: “I got on the phone with the bank. I sent them my federal court complaint, to see that it matched. I did everything. Obviously, assumptions were made the minute he walked in based on his race. It’s unbelievable that this guy got done with a race discrimination case and he’s not allowed to deposit the checks based on his case? It’s absolutely outrageous. They could have just called the bank that issued the checks, and they apparently didn’t do anything because it would have all been verified immediately.” Thomas tried to deposit three checks from Enterprise that afternoon: One for $13,000, one for $27,000, and one for $59,000.
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