Video of a woman dubbed "Permit Patty" reportedly calling police on a little girl selling water bottles near her San Francisco apartment has gone viral on social media.
It’s the latest in a series of white people calling police on blacks in public parks, coffee shops, and other spaces, Fox News reported.
One recent incident led to the arrest of two African-American men waiting for a business colleague at a Starbucks in Philadelphia, and the company shut down all of its owned shops for racial bias training in May, National Public Radio reported.
In the latest incident, Erin Austin posted a video on her Instagram page of a woman named Alison Ettel supposedly calling the police on Austin's 8-year-old daughter Jordan, who was selling bottles of water to raise money for a trip to Disneyland, USA Today reported.
The girl was selling the bottles outside the family's apartment complex across from AT&T Stadium, where the San Francisco Giants play, when Ettel asked her for a permit, USA Today said. That's when Austin intervened.
"This woman don't wanna let a little girl sell some water," Austin can be heard in the video, per USA Today. "She calling the police on an 8-year-old little girl."
Ettel can be heard saying the girl was "illegally selling water without a permit" while holding the phone to her ear after Austin followed her. The video has been viewed 1.2 million times since it was posted over the weekend.
Ettel told HuffPost that she only pretended to call the police and felt "horrible and heart-wrenched" over the incident. She claimed that race had nothing to do with her actions. She said she wanted them to be quiet.
"They were screaming about what they were selling," Ettel said. "It was literally nonstop. It was every two seconds, 'Come and buy my water.' It was continuous and it wasn't a soft voice, it was screaming.”
"I have no problem with enterprising young women. I want to support that little girl. It was all the mother and just about being quiet."
Austin's cousin, Raje Lee, said on Twitter that Austin was gifted four tickets to Disneyland by a man who heard about the story, USA Today noted. Austin told USA Today that she was "overwhelmed" by the support and will be following up on the trip with her daughter and son, Joshua. She said that she did not accept Ettel's apology.
"She did it to herself," Austin said, per USA Today.
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