IOWA CITY, Iowa – University of Iowa defensive end Faith Ekakitie learned first-hand what it feels like to have police pointing a gun in his face, and he took to Facebook to thank the officers involved.

Ekakitie was playing Pokemon Go in an Iowa City Park last week while listening to music through his headphones when the 6-foot-3, 290-pound black man turned around to find five police officers with their weapons drawn and fixed on him, the Des Moines Register reports.

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A man fitting Ekakitie’s description had robbed a bank at gunpoint one block from the park about two minutes before officers arrived. The misunderstanding ended peacefully, with Ekakitie complying with the officers’ demands, and the UI senior wrote about the experience on Facebook in a post that has since gone viral.

Ekakitie wrote that last Wednesday “was the first time that I’ve ever truly feared for my life, and I have the media to thank for that.”

The post transposed what occurred from Ekakitie’s point of view with what the officers likely experienced, and called on Americans to rethink possible prejudices about others. He also thanked local police for “handling a sensitive situation very professionally.”

“Today I was surrounded and searched by approximately five Iowa City Police Officers. My pockets were checked, my backpack was opened up and searched carefully, and I was asked to lift up my shirt while they searched my waistband. Not once did they identify themselves to me as Iowa City Police officers, but with four gun barrels staring me in the face, I wouldn’t dare question the authority of the men and woman in front of me. This is what happened from my point of view,” Ekakitie wrote.

“From the police officers point of view, all they knew was that a bank had just been robbed less than ten minutes ago. The suspect was a large black male, wearing all black, with something on top of his head and the suspect is armed. As they drive past an Iowa City park that was less than 3 minutes away from the bank that was just robbed, they notice a large black man, dressed in all black, with black goggles on his head. They quickly move to action and identify themselves as the Iowa City police and ask me to turn around and place my hands up. I do not comply, they ask again, and again no response from me. So they all draw their guns and begin to slowly approach the suspect.”

“The bank robbery call came out, and then two minutes later officers saw this person less than a block away from the bank matching the description,” Iowa City police Sgt. Jorey Bailey told the Register.

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Ekakitie blamed the media for often providing misleading information or omitting pertinent facts in cases of officer involved shootings, and explained how his situation could have turned out differently.

“In this situation, what the media would fail to let people know is that the suspect had his headphones in the entire time the Police Officers approached him initially. The suspect had actually just pulled up to the park because he was playing a newly popular Game called Pokémon Go. The suspect didn’t realize that there were four cops behind him because his music was blaring in his ears,” he wrote. “The suspect had reached into his pockets, for something which was his phone, but for all the cops could have known, he was reaching for a gun. The suspect could very well become another statistic on this day.”

“I am not one to usually rant on Facebook or anywhere else, but with all of the crazy things that have been happening in our world these past couple of weeks it is hard to stay silent. I am thankful to be alive, and I do now realize, that it very well could have been me, a friend of mine, my brother, your cousin, your nephew etc,” he continued.

“Misunderstandings happen all the time and just like that things can go south very quickly. It is extremely sad that our society has brainwashed us all to the point where we can’t feel safe being approached by the police officers in our respective communities. Not all police officers are out to get you, but at the same time, not all people who fit a criminal profile are criminals.”

Sgt. Bailey said he doesn’t believe race was an issue in the misunderstanding, aside from its use to describe the robbery suspect.

“I don’t think race played a factor in this, nor does it in circumstances like this because of the detailed description, the location given by the person and the short time span in which it all occurred,” he said.

Ekakitie concluded:

I would like t(o) thank the Iowa City Police department for handling a sensitive situation very professionally. I would also urge people to be more aware of their surroundings because clearly I wasn’t. Lastly, I would urge us all to at least to attempt to unlearn some of the prejudices that we have learned about each other and now plague our minds and our society. I am convinced that in the same way that we learned these prejudices, we can also unlearn them.