Rialto police released bodycam footage Tuesday afternoon to defend their actions during an incident involving three black and one white guest leaving an Airbnb rental last month where the renters allege police overreacted when neighbors reported them as possible burglars. One of the renters was Bob Marley’s granddaughter, Donisha Prendergast.

The release of the police video comes a few days after Prendergast released a video on Instagram stating she and the rest of the guests were “surrounded by the police for being black in a white neighbourhood.”

On the afternoon of April 30, a neighbor called police to a home in the 2600 block of West Loma Vista Drive for several suspicious people in the neighborhood loading suitcases into a vehicle that was backed into a driveway.

“The reporting party did not recognize the vehicle or the neighbors — and also the people as being neighbors — or the homeowner and believed that she was witnessing an in-progress burglary,” interim Police Chief Mark P. Kling said at a news conference Tuesday at the Rialto Police Department.

During the conference, police showed three videos recorded from officers’ body cameras.

“It is imperative that our police department address the inaccuracies that are being reported and also to provide our community with a reason that we made the stop in the first place,” Kling said.

During the recorded videos, Prendergast and others could be seen walking around outside of the vehicle and appeared irritated that police stopped them, even after police explained that a neighbor had called about suspicious behavior. The group had their cell phones in hand and tried to explain to police who they were.

The officers tried building a rapport with Prendergast and the other occupants by attempting to talk about Canada, where they were from, and about Airbnb. The officers showed photos and got on a phone call with the homeowner in an attempt to help resolve the issue.

“At no time during the encounter did our officers use any form of force,” Kling said. “At no time, did we actually handcuff anyone. We actually allowed them to exit the vehicle and remain freely walking about with our officers. We never sat them on a curb.

“We did nothing but treat them with respect and dignity,” he said.

The interim chief said Prendergast and the other occupants could not produce, at any time during the encounter, any documentation that would enable police to confirm the home rental reservation. Kling said the encounter would likely have been faster with documents to prove the reservation.

Kling expounded on the value of the city’s Neighborhood Watch Program and how government agencies have asked citizens to be diligent and if they see something, to say something.

In the neighborhood where the Airbnb home is located, Las Colinas, there have been 155 calls with confirmed burglaries over the last three years. That area is using Nextdoor and other social media, building Neighborhood Watch the way it should be, Kling said.

The woman who made the 911 call has received threats since the incident went viral with news coverage and social media posts.

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Marie Rodriguez, the homeowner of the Airbnb property, said she spoke with the neighbor who called the police who told her she saw a strange car in the driveway and four young people — three black and one white — leaving in a hurried manner. The neighbor smiled and waved but got no response and that prompted her to call the police and not the color of their skin, Rodriguez said.

On a separate Facebook account belonging to a user named Kells Fyffe-Marshall, a video shows at least four police vehicles around the occupant’s car. Fyffe-Marshall in the description said there were seven police vehicles that day and that one of the officers said a helicopter was tracking them.

A press release sent out by police Monday addressed some of the issues saying officers had detained the people for 22 minutes. They also noted that with their unedited bodycam footage along with the “edited social media video postings, the Rialto Police Department is confident officers treated the involved individuals with dignity, respect and professionalism,” the police statement said.

The Police Department was served notice Monday of “pending legal action filed on behalf of Prendergast and two other people involved in the encounter, identified as Komi-Oluwa Olafimihan and Fyffe-Marshall.

Prendergast and the group were in the area for the Kaya Festival at the NOS Events Center in San Bernardino.

Rodriguez said she applauds her neighbor who called police to report something that looked suspicious to her while Rodriguez was at work. She said she also has been receiving hate messages on social media, being called a racist and a privileged white woman.

“I didn’t do anything other than open my home up to strangers, treated them with kindness and hospitality and graciousness,” Rodriguez said. “They all said they loved staying in my home, that I was one of the best hosts they had ever had.

“So this was all a big shock, and I thought it had blown over last week,” she said.

Fyffe-Marshall noted her frustration over having the police called on them because they didn’t wave to the neighbor.

“They locked down the neighborhood and had us standing in the street. Why? A neighbor across the street saw (three) black people packing luggage into their car and assumed we were stealing from the house. Then she called the police,” Fyffe-Marshal wrote.

Rialto Mayor Pro Tem Ed Scott spoke at the news conference in support of the Police Department, describing the community as small and very diverse.

“I watched the videos that have been shown all over social media, and I’m fully convinced that our police department acted in a very professional manner and in a manner that we should all be proud of,” Scott said.

Rialto residents should be able to call police for service when they see something suspicious, he said. If there’s one thing to be learned from the experience, he said, maybe residents should communicate more with their neighbors.