A white Missouri councilman can be seen on video threatening to call the police on a Black teen for denting his car.
Only, video the teen recorded in a McDonald’s parking lot shows that his red car door didn’t swing as far as the councilman initially thought.
The teen’s sister, who goes by Imani Ahadi on Twitter, posted the video of Florissant city councilman Timothy Jones July 25.
In a Twitter caption posted with the footage she says: “I taught my brother well… 17 years old and respectfully made a fool out of this St. Louis Councilman who tried to harass him today… You really hate to see it,” Ahadi said.
The video seems to start after an initial conversation, and the footage picks up with Jones identifying himself as a councilman and the teen asking what dent he put on the man’s car.
“It’s right here, dude. Come on. You can’t see that. I can,” Jones said.
He was pointing to faint scratches on the back door of his car just above a back tire.
The teen scoffed and asked, “What are you talking about? So are we calling the police still or what?”
“You’re f—ing right I’m going to call the police, dude,” Jones said. “You could have said ‘hey, sorry about that’ and we could’ve both rode our separate ways. Now you get out of the car and say, ‘oh there’s no dent, and I didn’t do that.'”
At that point, the teen opens his door and lightly swings it outward to show Jones where his door naturally lands, which is below Jones’ door handle, a few inches away from the marks the councilman identified.
“Tell me is that over here where you’re talking about,” the teen said in the video.
“You’re right. You’re right,” Jones said. “I agree, dude.”
But instead of dropping the incident, Jones continued to argue with the teen, saying, “Dude, that was just uncalled for. You could have said something, dude. I know your parents didn’t bring you up that way.”
At that point, the teen suggested calling the police, and Jones asked him to make the call.
When the teen refused to call the police on himself, Jones told him, “Dude, just have a little common courtesy. That’s all I’m asking for, dude.”
The teen responded, “Aye man, just go on with your day. I’m not even worried about it.”
Jones is the same councilman who was arrested and charged with patronizing prostitution in an undercover operation Oct. 16, 2014, according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.
The teen’s sister shared a link to a news article about the incident on Twitter.
“And the icing on the cake… he’s still in office,” Ahadi said in another Twitter message. “America for you.”
