White woman gets death threats after calling 911 on black girl, 8, for selling bottled water

Allison Ettel, 44, is speaking out after drawing fury and backlash in racial row

A white woman has spoken out after drawing online fury for calling the police on an eight-year-old black girl who was selling bottled water on the sidewalk.

‘It was wrong, and I wish I could take it back,’ Allison Ettel, 44, told SFGate on Saturday, hours after video of the incident in San Francisco raced across the internet. ‘Believe me, I wish I never had done that.’

In interviews, Ettel said that she acted out of frustration after the girl and an adult woman had been ‘screaming’ outside her window all day, and only pretended to call 911 in a desperate attempt to get them to pipe down.

Race, she says, had nothing to do with it. But reaction to video of the incident was swift and furious, drawing death threats and messages vowing sexual assault in retaliation, Ettel said.

A phone call to Ettel from DailyMail.com went directly to voicemail and was not immediately returned.

When the camera approaches, she unapologetically points out that the 8-year-old did not have a permit to sell water

A woman (left) has been condemned online after she allegedly called the police on an eight-year-old girl (right) who was selling bottled water on the sidewalk in San Franciscio 

The original tweet,  as the camera rolls, the woman ducks down behind a wall but continues to call cops 

The original tweet,  as the camera rolls, the woman ducks down behind a wall but continues to call cops 

The incident unfolded on Saturday afternoon, when a brief video was posted on Twitter showing Ettel speaking on the phone and an unidentified woman accusing her of calling the cops on a girl selling bottled water on the sidewalk. 

‘Don’t hide, the whole world gonna see you, boo,’ the person shooting the video says. Ettel replies: ‘Yeah, illegally selling water without a permit.’

‘So my little cousin was selling water and didn’t have a permit so this lady decided to call the cops on an 8 year old,’ wrote Twitter user Raj (@_ethipiangold) alongside the video.

Raj referred to the woman as #PermitPatty. 

Ettel said the incident had actually been brewing for hours, with the woman and girl screaming incessantly outside of her window as she tried to work.

‘They were screaming about what they were selling,’ she told HuffPost. ‘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.’

She said that she approached building security but was told they couldn’t do anything.

‘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,’ she said. 

The online firestorm has also impacted the company Ettel (above) runs, TreatWell, which makes cannabis tinctures for cats and dogs

The online firestorm has also impacted the company Ettel (above) runs, TreatWell, which makes cannabis tinctures for cats and dogs

At her wit’s end, Ettel said she pretended to call 911, but was actually bluffing. 

A spokeswoman for the San Francisco Police Department said officers have had no recent contact with an 8-year-old girl and the woman who posted the video said that no police ever responded. 

However, critics who spread the video far and wide said that even the threat of calling 911 on the black woman and child was racist and ‘evil’.

‘They want police to kill us. The girl was causing no harm. They know what happens when they call the police,’ wrote columnist Shaun King. ‘This is evil.’

CNN commentator Marc Lamont Hill chimed in: ‘If you call the police on an 8 year old Black child selling water, you’re saying that you don’t care if that child lives or dies. It’s that simple.’ 

The online firestorm has also come down upon the company Ettel runs, TreatWell, which makes cannabis tinctures for cats and dogs.

Magnolia Oakland, a dispensary that carries TreatWell’s products, said in a statement that it had immediately dropped the company’s products upon learning of the video.

‘After seeing this video of their CEO, calling the police on an 8 year old entrepreneur selling water on a hot day, we decided without hesitation that we could no longer patronize her company,’ the dispensary said.

‘Treatwell was one of our best selling products but to us, Integrity is always above profits.’

Raj says the child is fine and continued to sell water bottles, and has solicited donations for the girl over the incident. 

Several people on Twitter compared the case to the woman who called 911 in April over a group of black people illegally barbecuing in a park in Oakland, California.

She was dubbed ‘bbqbecky’ online, in reference to the derisive term ‘Beckys’ for white women.  



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