High-Risk Transaction : The Ryan Coogler - Bank of America Incident

High-Risk Transaction: The Ryan Coogler - Bank of America Incident tells the story of a bizarre police-involved incident in the tony Buckhead neighborhood of Atlanta, GA.

Acclaimed director Ryan Coogler, best known for directing the box-office hits like Black Panther and Creed, went into a Bank of America one cold Friday January morning to discreetly withdraw $12,000 to pay an employee of his. How did he end up in handcuffs for over an hour, accused of attempting to rob the same bank where he waited in line to withdraw money from his checking account?

This incident set off a firestorm of angry comments on social media from those in the entertainment industry, the banking industry, critics of the Atlanta PD, and the African-American community.

Author James Baca, known professionally as "The Notorious Banker", uncovers why the incident happened and how it could have been prevented. Baca is a 13-year former employee of Bank of America, including years in a managerial role and a consumer advocate specializing in dealing with bank issues for four years. Baca reviewed the hours of publicly released bodycam footage countless times to detail the flaws made by Bank of America in its handling of this incident. Why did it escalate from a basic customer request to a 911 call from a scared teller to a thrown-together management team ill-equipped to handle the mess the branch created.

Baca intertwines his intimate knowledge of general banking procedures, interlaced with personal stories of workplace flubs inside the bank, and commentary on the state of the retail banking industry to paint a picture of a bank branch making an unforgivable mistake to a prominent movie maker going into the bank to do a transaction that you and I would do as well. Baca also discusses who's to blame the most and what roles racism and the police had in the interaction.

James Baca is a former banker and consumer advocate. His advocacy project is called, "The Notorious Banker" and hosts a podcast of the same name. He has tens of thousands of followers across his social media channels. Baca has committed to donating a portion of the net proceeds of this book towards good causes that will benefit communities. Hopefully, some good will come out of this mess.

Tiktok: @NotoriousBanker
Twitter: @BankBetterGuy