MASSILLON, Ohio (WJW) — Toria Townsend was in a hurry.
On June 13, she was late for a hair appointment in northeast Ohio that was 45 minutes away.
“Anybody that knows me knows when I’m in a rush, I’m not thinking,” she told NewsNation affiliate WJW on Wednesday.
On her drive home, she couldn’t help but notice the glares of strangers and passersby.
“People kept mugging me and giving my dirty looks. I’m like, ‘Why did everyone wake up on the wrong side of the bed?'” Townsend said.
She returned to her Massillon home that evening and dug into some chicken strips.
“Not even 10 minutes, I get a Ring … the Massillon police officers are at my door,” Townsend said.
She was nervous — so nervous that it seemed appropriate to warn the knocking officer that her breath smelled like chicken strips, she said.
“The craziest thing — you’re not gonna’ believe it,” said the officer. “We got a call. Someone was concerned. Are you like a hair stylist or something? … There’s, like, hair peeking out of your trunk.”
Then it all clicked.
“Oh my Jesus, that’s my weave,” Townsend shouted.
Everyone had a good laugh about it, she said.
In her haste to get into her stylist’s studio, Townsend tossed the wig into the trunk and forgot about it. After nearly an hour of alarming others on the road back to Massillon, someone snapped a photo of the hair hanging out of her trunk, along with the license plate, and sent it to the police.
Officers checked Townsend’s plate number, got her address and went out for a welfare check just after 7:30 p.m. according to the dispatch log. They stopped at her house just before 7:45 p.m. Then, a single line of the narrative was added to the log: “WIG.”
“Honestly, I’m glad that the person called. It shows how much the community cares,” Townsend said. “Every time you look up, it’s not a good outcome when it comes to a person of color and a police officer. When you finally see that person having jokes and laughing with smiles — that’s amazing.
“The police officers were extremely nice. They didn’t make assumptions.”
Townsend, 30, works with adults with developmental disabilities and is also working toward a degree in human and social services. She’s also awaiting a certification to distribute her own wine brand called Classy Melita, named after her aunt, a wine-lover who died of COVID-19.
Townsend’s Ring doorbell camera footage was later posted to TikTok and went viral.
“Out of all things, this really happened. … It only happens to me,” she laughed.