JEREMY RANCH, Summit County — Eight African-American door-to-door salespeople found themselves in jail this week for soliciting without a license, while they say their white colleague went free.
The incident Tuesday involving Summit County sheriff's deputies has the five men and three women claiming racial discrimination.
"I felt like it was kind of biased for us to be arrested and her not to be for doing the same thing," said Detroit native Ryan Jackson, a 44-year-old salesman for Adavanage Diversified Products. The Illinois-based company dispatches its sales force around the country to sell organic cleaning products.
"They gave us the impression they were racist," said Mike Young, a 10-year veteran of the company who has sold in Jeremy Ranch before. "They treated us like criminals."
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Kristin Riege, a 20-year-old white woman, said she had just finished a sale on Lower Saddleback Road when an officer in a black unmarked police truck pulled alongside her and flashed a badge.
"He said, 'Be careful out there. We have just arrested all of your co-workers,'" Riege said. "He never told me to stop working."
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