Twitter: Yashar Ali
December 31, 2020, 10:49 am*
Jazz musician Keyon Harrold posted a video on Instagram of a hysterical white woman demanding his 14-year-old son hand over his phone, accusing him of stealing it from her.
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The altercation took place in Alto Hotel in SoHo and shows a manager siding with the woman as Harrold refuses to have his son treated like a suspect in this woman’s accusations.
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The footage went viral, and while the woman hasn’t been publicly identified, CNN released an interview with her. The interview withholds the woman’s name yet shares the teenager’s, who is the victim in all this.
It also shares her “side of the story” in which she says that she had accused someone else of stealing her phone before the child, who CNN writes she “maintained had her phone in his pocket.” The phrase is a little confusing, but it kind of sounds like she is still suggesting the teen stole her phone.
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The interviewer describes the woman as “rambling” on the phone and asks her if she’s worried about charges being pressed.
“Of course I worry,” she responded. “That’s not who I am. I actually … try very hard to make sure that I am always doing the right thing.”
She also claimed she was assaulted during the incident, but new footage sheds light on her violent actions towards the teen that Harrold alleged in his original post.
Security footage clearly shows her tackling him as he tries to walk away:
Here is the video of this woman tackling a 14-year-old boy after falsely accusing him of stealing her phone.
By the way, CNN spoke to her but is withholding her identity because she fears for her safety. In the interview, she claimed to be the victim
pic.twitter.com/4I1ZBwzdP4 https://t.co/uJAyhnDOgf
— Yashar Ali
(@yashar) December 31, 2020
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The phone the woman was looking for was returned to her shortly after her attack by an Uber driver.
At a news conference on Wednesday with Rev. Al Sharpton, Harrold said that he grew up in Ferguson, Missouri, and has had a lot of experiences with racial profiling and doesn’t want that for his son.
“I want my son to grow up whole. That’s all we want. … I come from Ferguson and this has been my passport to the world,” Harrold said, referring to his music. “And I can’t even come downstairs in New York City … and just go get brunch without being attacked and wrongfully accused of something.”
*First Published: December 31, 2020, 10:48 am
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