A Texas business owner says she believes she was being harassed by a strange man because of her race and class. She called 911 to report him but found out days later her request was still “in the queue,” and now she feels like as “a person of color, the system isn’t for” her.
On Sunday, May 29, a female Black spa owner in Dallas videotaped a white man after he refused to leave her business when asked to depart.
In the footage that she posted on Twitter in four parts, the man allegedly mocked Jehovah’s Witnesses and said her “race” and “class” ruined his and his family’s lives. The more she asked him to leave, the more he laughed and made her and others around feel uncomfortable.
The woman, who prefers to be unidentified, said she called the police before she started to film the man, however, they never responded. The video she posted on TikTok shows the man reveling in them not coming to her aid.
She said, “Please leave, please leave.”
“Please call the cops,” he says casually back.
“I need you to leave. I need you to leave right now,” she continued to say. “Get out of my establishment now.”
He then said he was going to call the cops on her. In the video, she detailed how he came into her business well in advance of his appointment and started roaming around, looking into rooms and making her employees and other customers feel uncomfortable.
The man laughed to himself more with a sense of satisfaction for the discomfort he caused the woman.
“I need you to leave, or the police will make you leave,” the woman insisted again.
But the man, who had a tan USA cap on and sat comfortably in her chair with one ankle resting on one of his knees, continued to intimidate, saying, “I like the police … they’re nice to me.”
The woman repeats, “I need you to get out of my establishment, for real, because you’re ruining the vibe.”
“There’s no vibe here,” he says as the now-trespasser states he will wait for the police — dr-ly taunting her since the police have not responded to her call.
Finally, after minutes of back and forth, he breaks when she says that he is “trespassing.”
“You’re trespassing. I asked you to leave. I gave your refund. I want you to go,” she said.
The footage captures the man saying, “Your race and your class destroyed my family and my life.”
“You ruined my life, my entire legacy of being a Christian,” he continued. “And now you are playing an energy chess game with someone that has nothing to do with your class.”
He later invoked race, by saying, “Maybe you could’ve asked me if I wanted to be a rapper or gangster in California,” he said. The business owner said on social media the man eventually left after 35 minutes.
After the spa owner posted the video online TikTok users said he works as a locksmith in Dallas and has a history of doing this to other businesses.
The spa owner said she called the FBI, hoping for assistance.
She said currently she is waiting for an agent to call her and was unable to receive a case number and is unable to follow up with the agency.
On May 31, she reported that the Dallas Police Department told her that her complaint from May 29 is “still in the queue.”
The business owner said to the Daily Beast, “Because I’m a person of color, the system isn’t for me. It’s for others.”
