A video of a white woman who is accused of verbally attacking a Black couple at a dog park in Williamsburg on Saturday night is circulating on social media, causing massive outrage.
The racially motivated verbal attack incident happened when according to Frederick Joseph, the woman – who has not been identified – was upset because she confused Joseph’s dog with another dog that was barking loudly.
The woman allegedly told Joseph to “stay in your hood,” to which he responded in disbelief, “Stay in our hood? I’m sorry, what?”
Black Man Recorded The Incident, Confronted Woman
Joseph wanted to get the incident on camera to avoid any misconceptions about what really happened at the park. The woman was caught on camera giving him the finger and even tried to knock the phone out of Joseph’s hand while he was trying to record the confrontation, according to CBS Local News.
“She’s like, ‘You’re not from around here. Go back to your hood. Stay in your hood. Stay in your hood,’” Joseph told a local reporter.
“So I’m like, ‘Stay in my hood?’ Right, like? ‘You’re being racist right now,’ and she’s like, ‘I’m not being racist.’”
According to Joseph, that part of the confrontation was not caught on camera. Joseph, who is an author of a published book called “The Black Friend: On Being a Better White Person” told local reporter that he tried explaining to the woman that she might have the wrong dog.
“And then she just starts, like, going completely out of the left field,” Joseph said, adding: “At that point, I’m like, look, what you’re doing is deeply, deeply offensive, deeply racist…”
Joseph’s fiancée, Porsche Landon, said that the woman was saying a lot of things and even told them to ‘take your dog out of here. You people shouldn’t even be here.’
A Witness Saw And Heard The Attack
Steve Tracy, who was also at the park at the time of the incident, said he just met the couple and they were all trying to converse while their dogs ran around the park.
In the video, Joseph asked Tracy, “You were right here watching this entire thing. Did she just not just stand here and tell us to stay in our hood?”
Tracy said, “She did.” The woman told the local reporter that what was happening was not OK. “As those words were coming out and things started to unfold, it was pretty obvious to me, like, this is… this is not OK,” he said.
Woman Fired From Her Job Over Incident
The local reporter tried to ask the woman for a comment over the incident. She refused and said, “No thank you. No comment.”
The woman was also terminated from her job because of the incident.
Derek Anderson, the CEO of Bevy and believed to be the woman’s employer, took action immediately and offered an apology to the couple. “So sorry to what has happened. No one should treat people the way we witnessed. This is extremely troubling,” Derek posted on Twitter.
He then posted another tweet saying, “BevyHQ has zero tolerance for discriminatory behavior of any kind. Yesterday an employee engaged in behavior contrary to our values and has been terminated. We apologize deeply to all involved.”
The video that was first posted on Twitter immediately caught people’s attention. Some began working to identify the woman who they called a “Karen.”
