Jazz musician Keyon Harrold, took to social media this weekend to share an incident of racial profiling against his 14-year-old son in New York by a woman falsely accusing him of stealing her phone.
The unidentified woman accosted Harrold and his son in the lobby at the Arlo Hotel in Soho, New York and demanded that the boy handed over her phone even though he kept saying that it was his phone.
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What’s worse, the hotel manager who intervened, sided with the hysterical white woman—who was not even a guest at the time of the incident—and asked the young 14-year-old to hand over his phone to him for inspection.
As they turned to walk away the woman was heard saying she would not allow them to leave with her phone. The video ends with her running after them.
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Harold said the woman scratched him and tackled his son adding, “now think about the trauma that my son now has to carry, only coming downstairs to have box day brunch with his dad.”
The woman’s phone was returned to the hotel by an uber driver minutes after the altercation.
Harrold said he didn’t received an apology from the woman or the hotel manager after the incident.
Arlo Hotels, apologized in a statement on Sunday saying: “We’re deeply disheartened about the recent incident of baseless accusation, prejudice, and assault against an innocent guest of Arlo Hotel.”
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The video drew comparison to an incident in May when Amy Cooper called the police on black birdwatcher Christian Cooper false claiming that he was threatening her by telling her to put her dog on a leash as park rules state.
According to the New York Times, the police and the hotel have launched an investigation into the incident.