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A black teenager in North Carolina was pepper-sprayed by police inside his own home after neighbors called, suspecting a burglary.

DeShawn Currie, who has been living with his white foster parents Ricky and Stacy Tyler in Wake County for about a year, was surprised when three police officers arrived at the home, demanding he put his hands in the air.

“They was like, ‘Put your hands on the door,'” said DeShawn. “I was like, ‘For what? This is my house.’ I was like, ‘Why are y’all in here?'”

The Tylers left the side door to their home unlocked on Monday for the 18-year-old, who was coming home early from school. When police confronted DeShawn, pointing to pictures of his foster parents with their three younger children, and assuming he didn’t belong there, an argument ensued.

Officers maintain DeShawn became “threatening and belligerent,” prompting the pepper-spray.

By the time Stacy came home, EMS were treating DeShawn in the driveway. She cleared up the confusion with the officers, but not with the rest of her family.

“My 5-year-old last night, she looked at me and said, ‘Mama I don’t understand why they hated our brother, and they had to come in and hurt him.'”

“Everything that we’ve worked so hard for in the past years was stripped away yesterday in just a matter of moments,” said Ricky Tyler.

“He’s my baby boy just as much as my other three children are,” said Stacy.

The incident is one DeShawn isn’t sure he can overlook.

“I’m feeling comfortable,” explained DeShawn. “I had moved into my room, and I’m feeling like I’m loved. And then when they come in and they just profile me and say that I’m not who I am. And that I do not stay here because there was white kids on the wall, that really made me mad.”

No charges have been filed.

SOURCE: ABC11 | PHOTO CREDIT: Screengrab