Police are investigating after a mother claims her teens were harassed and called racial slurs outside a local business as they took photos for a school project.
The event unfolded Sunday, Feb. 4, outside Harvey’s Lounge in Edmonds, Wash., KOMO News reported. Mother Darnesha Weary said her 18-year-old son and 14-year-old daughter were using light from the bar’s sign to take photos for the assignment when bouncers confronted them.
She said a worker asked the teens to leave, and they did. However, they returned a short time later to look for a lost wallet. That’s when the teens said they were harassed, as one of the bouncers bolted out of the lounge yelling racial slurs before scaring them off with a baseball bat.
“‘Get off our property, we don’t want you here and we don’t want N-words,’ ” Weary’s kids claimed the bouncer said. “They kept saying the N-word over and over again.”
Weary said her children came home in hysterics and were clearly shaken up by what had happened. She later detailed the incident in a Facebook post.
“Immediately called 911, and they’re here taking a report now,” she wrote in her post. “I called the restaurant to inquire about the incident and the lady on the phone said that ‘she didn’t want them on her property.’ I then informed her that they were minors and working a on school project … she told me she didn’t care and that they were being ‘suspicious.’ ”
Part of the confrontation was caught on surveillance video, Edmonds police Sgt. Josh McClure said. The footage shows two people exit the bar and yell from the doorway. One of them was carrying a baseball bat but later set it down on the porch.
“It’s complex, it’s alarming and it has been something we have taken seriously,” McClure said.
Police are now investigating whether a crime was committed. The bar’s owner declined to comment on the matter.
