A white woman has been caught on video calling the police on a black family, who were enjoying a barbecue at a park in Oakland, California.
The woman in the video justified the call to the police by saying the family weren’t allowed to have the barbecue in the park because they were using a charcoal grill, which she claimed was prohibited by law.
That was when a bystander, Michelle Snider, confronted the woman for ‘harassing’ the family, and recorded the entire thing, according to KRON4.
This is just one of many videos which have surfaced on the internet in recent months, showing white people calling the police on black people for engaging in every day activities.
Snider, videoing the entire thing, asks the unnamed woman why she’s so concerned with the family enjoying their barbecue, to which the woman replies:
Because it causes extra money from our city to do things when children get injured because of improperly disposed coals.
Oakland Council member, Lynette Gibson McElhaney told the Huffington Post:
In a city that needs significant policing services, we can’t have those precious expensive resources squandered in a frivolous way.
Police are not a private security for any what person that’s offended by the presence of black folks in our public spaces.
Passerby Angela Williams, who confronted the woman, told HuffPost she’d just finished walking around the lake when she say the woman standing alone ‘with this frown on her face’.
According to Williams, the woman was ‘aggressive’, ‘curt’ and ‘non-friendly’.
She said:
She was just close enough to be uncomfortable but far away that she wasn’t in their physical space.
The man who set up the barbecue, Onsayo Abram, said the woman called the park ‘my park’, and told him ‘you guys shouldn’t be here, you shouldn’t be doing this’.
He told SFGATE:
She walked up, and she was telling me that it was illegal and against the law to have a charcoal grill at the lake.
I proceed to tell her, ‘Hey, there’s not a posted sign. I believe I’m in the correct area. Go on about your day and leave me alone.’ So she said, ‘No, I’m not gonna leave you alone. I’m gonna need you to shut this down, or I’m gonna call the police.’
I’m like, ‘Do what you need to do, I’m gonna continue to enjoy my day.’
According to official documents, there are six designated barbecue locations, three of which are designated for charcoal grills.
The family were grilling in a non-charcoal location, but many residents have reportedly seen people barbecue with charcoal in that area for years.
Oakland mayoral candidate, Cat Brooks, was disapproving of the woman’s choice to ring the police, saying:
When you engage law enforcement in these kinds of things you are opening the door for things to go very wrong, the potential for arrests like in Philadelphia with those two black men, or worse physical assault or death, and I don’t believe in this day and age that white folks don’t know that.
Police did attend the call, but did not take any action against the family, but did question them for one hour about their actions.
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