A “Karen” situation sparked outrage on social media last weekend when a white female health-care worker reportedly attempted to steal a rideshare bike from a group of Black teenagers.
The white female was filmed yelling and fake crying as she sat on the rideshare bike to prevent the teenager from getting on it. She repeatedly yelled “Help! Help me! Please, help me.”
The teen kept saying in the background of the video, “This is not your bike.” The Black youth and his group of friends also explained in the video that they had already paid for the bikes.
A white male co-worker intervened along with two other white male bystanders to try to encourage the Black teenager to just give up the bike. The co-worker even suggested the boy should reset the bike.
Then, the woman started fake crying and said that the teen was “hurting her unborn child.”
“You’re hurting my fetus. You’re hurting my unborn child,” the woman yelled in the video.
The teen responded, “I am not touching you. You are putting your stomach on my hand. This is my bike on my account.”
The woman also snatched the phone of the young person that she was arguing with over the bike. Another teen with the group attempted to resolve the problem by offering his bike, but the woman refused and kept pretending to cry.
Social media users pointed out that if the boy would’ve just given her the bike, he could’ve lost his money due to the cancellation policy, with him being charged a cancellation fee.
The woman was quickly identified was pictured in the video wearing a health-care badge with her name and face on it, as well as scrubs. At the beginning of the video, she tried to quickly remove the badge when she realized that she was being recorded.
She reportedly works as a physician assistant from Russia. She works for NYC Health + Hospitals/Bellevue.
Social media coined the name “CitiBike Karen” for the woman. The rideshare bike that she attempted to steal is reportedly named after the sponsors Citibank, which invested $41 million into the rideshare bike program that is under Lyft car rideshare.
The video gained the attention of several social media users and civil rights attorney Ben Crump.
He tweeted with the video attached, “This is unacceptable! A white woman was caught on camera attempting to STEAL a Citi Bike from a young Black man in NYC. She grossly tried to weaponize her tears to paint this man as a threat. This is EXACTLY the type of behavior that has endangered so many Black men in the past!”
Another Twitter user wrote, “This is the behavior that got whole black towns burned to the ground.”
“Same behavior got a 14-year-old boy killed. I’m glad he held his ground. She was really looking for “outside support” on this one? Pathetic,” wrote a New York freelance writer.
Someone simply wrote “Money, Mississippi,” referencing the lynching of Emmett Till, who was killed after a white woman claimed he made a pass at her.
Many people summed the developments up as “Karen Behavior” and said “Karens gone Karen.”
The NYC Health + Hospitals Bellevue tweeted out a message on its social media to acknowledge the incident and indicate that it is reviewing the video. Social media users said the company should be doing more.
There is no information on whether the woman faced discipline by the hospital.
