A woman recorded part of a concerning encounter after she says a man followed her in a car in Groveland, Massachusetts.
Twenty-one-year-old Julia Santos began taking video after picking up dog food from someone offering it on a town page. She was just five minutes from her home.
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"I left and I saw you follow me all the way here, and I turned up here cause quite frankly, I don't feel safe right now," she says in the video to a man in a convertible.
"I don't feel safe with you driving around my neighborhood," the man responds.
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"Why?" she asks.
"There's just too many people," he says.
"Too many people? Or is it cause I'm Black? Is that why?" she says.
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He says it's not, and Santos asks if the man is sure.
"I don't know what color you are," he replies. "What color are you?"
"I just said I'm Black, and is that why you followed me?" she asks.
"That's good, you're Black," he says. "Congratulations."
Santos says she feared for her life and does not know why the man was trailing her.
"That was probably a fear that I've never felt before, because I had no idea what could of happened and what he was capable of doing," Santos t old NBC10 Boston.
Police are investigating. The man is not currently facing charges.
"She was doing nothing wrong," Groveland Police Chief Jeffrey Gillen said. "She was in the neighborhood. Anyone's allowed to be in the neighborhood in Groveland. She was treated inappropriately, she was treated like she was up to no good and she was simply just doing her own thing, not bothering anybody."
"People may think that racism doesn't exist in their little small town, but I just want people to open their eyes and realize that just cause it doesn't happen to them doesn't mean that it doesn't happen at all."
