12-year-old Uriah Sharp was delivering papers in the affluent neighbourhood of Upper Arlington in the US when a police car began to follow him. Image: Facebook/Bmai Love

‘Not every person of colour is trying to rob you’

An African-American mum is seething after police were called on her 11-year-old son while he was delivering papers in a local neighbourhood.

Uriah Sharp was on the first day of his paper route in Upper Arlington, a community just 15 minutes from his home in Colombus, Ohio.

He was accompanied by his mum and older brother as he delivered magazine copies to local houses.

(Facebook/Tammy Meadows Waddell)

The family were distributing the papers through a suburb in which 91 per cent of the residences house white people, with each household earning a median income of more than $100,000, according to U.S. census data.

After one of the neighbourhood residents called police to report a “suspicious” group of people, Uriah’s mum Brandie Sharp noticed a police car following her and her sons.

In a Facebook post that has since gone viral, the US mum hit back at what she said was blatant racial profiling, adding she felt “disgusted that this behaviour still exists”.

“First day of paper route and we are pulled over by police...Sad I can’t even teach my son the value of working without someone whispering and looking at us out the side of their eye perhaps because we DON'T ‘look like a person that belongs in their neighbourhood’,” she wrote.

“Police officer pulls up and ask us questions as if we were intruding in their area. Totally disgusted and disturbed that this kind of behaviour still exist.”

Sharp went on to say she will ensure Uriah’s paper route is changed in attempt to avoid a similar situation in future.

“My apologies Upper Arlington for bringing my 12-year-old African American son into your neighbourhood to deliver the paper and make a few dollars on the side...NO HARM INTENDED I will make sure my boss changes his route,” she said.

(Facebook/Tammy Meadows Waddell)

In an audio recording obtained by ABC6, the caller who phoned police reported the family looked “suspicious” and suggested they were stealing from residences.

"It looked like at first they were delivering newspapers or something, but I noticed they were walking up to the houses with nothing in hand and one of them came back with something," the caller said.

"I mean, I don't want to say something was going on, but it just seemed kind of suspicious."

After hearing the recording, an already furious Sharp said she became “livid”.

“I realised they called the police on my son — a little boy. . . . It breaks my heart,” she told Teen Vogue.

The hard part was trying to explain the situation to her son, Sharp said, adding that she compared the event to when people at school don’t like you so you avoid playing with them.

“Every time I calm down, I get angry again,” the mum said.

“Whatever the reason was for my 11-year-old son to have to go through a police encounter, it’s not okay.”

This event is just one of many recent incidents where a child of colour has been reported to police for carrying out normal activities.

Two weeks ago, 12-year-old African American boy Regie Fields, who set up his own lawn mowing business to service his community, was reported to police for cutting into a resident’s grass lawn.

Recently, a white woman called the police to report an eight-year-old African American girl selling water on a sidewalk.

Sharp said racial profiling needs to stop.

“For people to say it’s not racial, then my question is, what was so threatening?” she said.

“It needs to stop. Every person of colour doesn’t want to rob you.”