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US-POLICE-CRIME-RACISM

Source: EDUARDO MUNOZ ALVAREZ / Getty

In today’s episode of When Keeping It Racist Goes Wrong, a former ice cream shop owner in New York has been ordered to pay $4,500 after being accused of calling the police on peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters and falsely claiming they threatened him with violence.

According to the Associated Press, David Elmendorf, who owned Bumpy’s Polar Freeze in Schenectady, was ordered to pay nine protesters $500 each as a result of his actions and a lawsuit filed by Attorney General Letitia James in March.

The suit alleged that it was actually Elmendorf who was threatening violence against the protesters gathered in front of his store on June 30, 2020. He reportedly referred to them as “savages hanging out in Section 8 housing” along with a slew of other racial slurs. Elmendorf was accused of brandishing a .22-caliber air rifle pellet gun at the group and threatening to shoot the protesters and run them over with his truck.

In fact, Elmendorf was arrested and charged with two misdemeanor counts of menacing related to the incident after police recovered a pellet gun, a can of ammunition and a rifle scope in his vehicle. According to The Hill, he became the first person to be charged under a new state law prohibiting the filing of a false police report to intimidate someone based on their race. The law was established after the infamous “Central Park Karen” incident last year in which white woman Amy Cooper called the police on Black birdwatcher Christian Cooper (no relation, although Amy is the type of white woman who would call the police on a Black man for stealing her last name) and falsely claimed she had been threatened by him. 

Apparently, there are still a lot of white people out there who haven’t gotten the memo that the police are not here to be their personal negro exterminators. (Of course, with America’s anti-Black police brutality track record, it isn’t surprising some of them would still be confused about that.)

These people might not believe that Black lives indeed matter, or that putting Black people in danger by falsely claiming to the police that they are being violent or committing crimes is immoral and criminal in itself, but sooner or later, they are going to learn to leave us alone and stop calling the cops on us over nonsense.

“There is zero tolerance for harassment, intimidation, or violence of any kind against anyone in New York,” James said after the ruling on her lawsuit, according to AP.

Black people in New York are fortunate to have an attorney general in office who stays on the right side of history.

SEE ALSO:

Letitia James Succeeds Where Other Attorneys General Fail

‘Concerning And Unlawful Practices’: Letitia James Sues NYPD In Landmark Suit Over Handling Of Black Lives Matter Protests

BLM Protesters Getting Paid After ‘Karen’ Law Violated By Shop Owner Who Called Cops  was originally published on newsone.com