A white store owner who threatened a Black process server with an ax and then lied to police about what happened was busted by Meta glasses.
The Black man said he wears the special Ray-Ban glasses for his safety. He secretly recorded a particularly unhinged interaction that could have gone sideways without the video evidence.
Back in May, a Manhattan landlord sent Trav, who goes by “mmwtrav” online, to serve papers on two tenants who ran an apparel business from a below-ground storefront.
“On today’s episode of Servin N Swervin,” read the caption on the now viral video. “I was able to use my Uno reverse card for the win. Watch until the end.”
‘I Cannot Make This Stuff Up’
The shop owner and his co-worker told Trav he had the wrong address, but Trav didn’t buy it and began taping the notice to the glass front doors. The shop owner grabbed an ax and ordered Trav to “go out, now!”
He balled up the paperwork and threw it in Trav’s face, and then briefly held the ax like a baseball bat, as though he were about to swing.
Trav didn’t flinch, so the man switched tactics. “Put your d–k away!” he screamed down the street. “Oh my god, this pervert.”
Unfazed, Trav simply tossed the wadded-up legal paper back at him, and said, “Here you go…”
Back inside the shop, the man’s coworker was on his cellphone. Trav predicted what would happen next.
He narrated, “Take one lucky guess on who’s playing the victim now and who they calling. I cannot make this stuff up. This is why I record for my safety.”
‘Arrest Evidence’
As one Instagram user put it in the comments section: “Calling the Police when you had the weapon is crazy work.” Another laughed: “They called the police on themselves.”
When the NYPD arrived, the store owner told a white officer his version of what happened. But unbeknownst to them, Trav turned over the “secret” video recorded on his Meta glasses to a second officer, who was Black.
“That ax is arrest evidence,” the Black officer told the other cop. “Bring that back as evidence.”
The white cop, who many viewers noted had held the ax without nitrile gloves, asked, “You saw video?”
The Black cop responded, “Does it matter?”
Many commenters were struck by the exchange. One wrote: “Talking about ‘you saw video?’ I can only imagine the ish they got away with over the years because people couldn’t prove what really happened.”
Another speculated, “The fact they never knew you were recording just proves so many cry wolf and get away with it.”
“Threatening you with an axe was so uncalled for,” a third chimed in, “Watching him get arrested is so satisfying.”
