Christopher Keys, a resident of Macon, Georgia, was robbed by two masked men in his motel room, but instead of telling his family the truth, he made up a story about being kidnapped by two African-American men but his plan crumbled when the story went viral on social media.
Robbed While Waiting for Male Prostitute in Motel Room
Keys was robbed shortly after he checked in to the Regency Inn & Suites in Macon. When he opened the door of his motel room he was expecting his hook-up, a male prostitute he contacted via Craigslist, a masked man walked into the room instead and forced him onto the bed at gunpoint. When the suspect left to go to the pastor's truck to take his wallet, another man came in to keep Keys from fleeing.
The suspects took his wallet, cell phone and keys. His phone was later recovered from a nearby Walmart parking lot. Keys admitted to the police that although he was married, he was at the motel to "play around" with a male prostitute and also told police he was a frequent visitor at the motel.
Fake Carjacking, Kidnapping Story
Keys, who served as the student pastor at a local Baptist church and taught at a private Christian school, told cops that he did not intend to tell his family the real reason he was at the motel and would instead tell his friends and family he was kidnapped and that's exactly what he did.
Keys told a friend that he had been carjacked and kidnapped by two black men who robbed him and took him to the motel. As the fake story started spreading, someone shared it on social media. The post, which has now been deleted, went viral in the local community before a news outlet caught wind of the story.
The news outlet wondered how they missed the police report for a kidnapping incident in the community and upon further investigation, they found that the whole story was fabricated.
The Bibb County Sheriff's Department also clarified the rumors in a post on Facebook and announced that Keys has been arrested and charged with solicitation of sodomy for attempting to hire a male prostitute. While sodomy is legal in the United States, soliciting a prostitute is still against the law. The term is commonly used to refer to "offering to pay for sex" of any kind.
Blame it on African-Americans
This is the third time this week that a crime has been falsely blamed on African-Americans to get out of trouble. Earlier, a woman in NYC's Central Park called 911 to report that an African-American was threatening her after a black man politely asked her to leash her dog. A video of the incident has gone viral on social media with more than 17 million views.
In a separate incident from earlier this week, a Florida woman, accused of killing her nine-year-old autistic son, fabricated a false story that he was abducted by two black men in a Home Depot parking lot, as previously reported by International Business Times. Police later found video evidence of her intentionally pushing and drowning her son into a pond.
These series of incidents have sparked outrage on social media with users expressing their anger over racial stereotyping of African-Americans.
"It just gets real old and annoying when we black people are the monsters in every story. Using a racial stereotype that all black people are criminals, these idiots think that will add credence to their stories if they claim that a black man did it," wrote one user, while another commented, "A false report accusing black folks of violence should be charged as a hate crime."
