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Video shows black delivery driver penned in and aggressively questioned by white residents in gated community

Video shows black delivery driver penned in and aggressively questioned by white residents in gated community

A viral Facebook Live video from earlier this week shows a disturbing encounter between a delivery driver and a resident of a gated community.

A delivery driver in Oklahoma, Travis Miller, found himself blocked in as he tried to leave a gated community on Monday of this week. He recorded the encounter from his truck with Facebook Live – the full video runs for over 35 minutes, and has gone viral. It’s since been viewed over 300,000 times.

Miller is a delivery driver for a store in Oklahoma that delivers furniture and other home goods – he made a delivery to a house in a gated community, and when he started to leave (in his truck), he found himself blocked in by a white car and someone from the local area.

This man asked him how he had gotten into the gated community, considering that a code is necessary.

Miller said that it wasn’t any of his business. He later clarified to NBC that he didn’t want to get the customer in trouble, but the customer had given him the code.

Miller is also wearing a uniform in the video, and said that the truck he was driving had his employers’ name on the side and was clearly identifiable.

Later in the video, another man comes to join the first man, David Stewart, who had identified himself as the president of the local homeowners association. Miller and his co-worker, who is also a black man, were blocked in by a white Subaru as they tried to make a U-turn after completing the delivery.

Miller is visibly upset in some parts of the video, and later told a news station that it had been a difficult couple of days after two deaths in his family.

He told NBC that he stayed in the truck and recorded the whole encounter because he was worried about what might happen:

My intention was never to go viral. My intention was to cover myself in case he called my employer and said I did something other than what I did.

Stewart said he had called the police, as did Miller. The police department said it was not investigating as the complaint had been withdrawn.

The situation was defused when the customer got in touch with one of the men who were blocking the truck and confirmed his account.

The customer also apologised to Miller for the trouble he had gone through. Miller said, "I don't know what gave them that sense of entitlement and why they felt it was OK to block me in.”

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